Editorial News of Thursday, 17 February 2000

Source: null

Teen mum tries to sell kid?

In an inside page story, the P & P says that an Agbogbloshie based ?kayayoo? (female porter), who thought she could sell her one-year-old baby girl to raise funds to trade, has found herself in the firm grips of the law while trying to consummate the deal.

The story says that the 17-year-old mother (name withheld), together with a friend, thought they had succeeded when they conveyed the innocent child to Dome, a suburb of Accra for sale. They were arrested by the police. The paper says that although the child?s mother has denied the allegation, she and her friend are being investigated for slave dealing According to the mother, a native of Sokode in Togo, the father of the child denied paternity of it so she had to bear all the responsibilities.

She said she came to Ghana to live with her grandmother till she delivered, but had to move to Agbogbloshie with her baby some months later as the old lady could not support them financially. "I ended up at the Agbogblloshie Market to work as a porter, but I earned very little money because of my baby. As a result, I decided to give the baby to someone and collect an amount of 15 million cedis to trade with, so that after repaying the money, I could collect back my baby", she is quoted as telling the police?