The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has sealed the Priesthood Orphanage in Karon Majigi Village, Abuja.
This occured after 23 children between the ages of one and 14 were rescued from the orphanage which is suspected to a center for Child Trafficking.
Mrs Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi, the Mandate Secretary, Women Affairs Secretariat, FCTA, disclosed this while handing over the children to Plateau Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs Caroline Dafur, in Abuja.
She said an ongoing investigation is currently on, and all facts regarding the allegations of child trafficking at the orphanage will be exposed.
Benjamins-Laniyi also said that the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, had authorised the Secretariat to profile and recertify orphanages operating within the nation’s capital.
In her words:
“Using this as an example, one of the first things I have done is to get approval for the recertification of orphanage homes in Abuja.
“The Minister has approved that there will be a full and thorough reprofiling and recertification of anything that has to do with orphanages in Abuja,”
The mandate secretary said that the Secretariat was already working with Dafur to reunite the children with their families.
She revealed that some of the children had been in the uncertified orphanage since 2019.
Speaking over the disappointment she got from her view of the orphanage, she said:
“We came in yesterday, and on reaching here, we were told that they went to church. We kept going from one church to another, looking for them, until we found them in a Deeper Life Church.
From there, we went to the orphanage, and what we saw in that place is that, in fact, it is not supposed to be called an orphanage.
The place is just so unkempt. Nine girls were sleeping in a very small room with just two mattresses.
For the boys, they were in a small room too, with two mattresses just on the floor. It is so pathetic the way human beings treat their fellow human beings in this country.”
