GENDER, PRINT MEDIA REPORTAGE AND CULTURAL ATTITUDE TO BABY FACTORY IN SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

In many African societies, a premium is placed on having biological children as proof of fertility. Couples unable to reproduce sometimes “harvest” babies from ‘’baby factory’’ a term coined by the Nigerian media as a subset of child trafficking. Existing literature have examined baby factory practices and its causes with little attention paid to the gender context of the media reportage. This study, therefore, investigated the gender nuances in the print media reportage of baby factory in southeastern Nigeria, the cultural attitude towards it and the responses of actors, journalists and security operatives toward the phenomenon. The Agenda Setting theory and Motherism provided the framework, while descriptive design was adopted. Reports on baby factory were generated from The Sun, The Punch and Nigerian Tribune newspapers from January to June, 2014 when reportage on baby factory expanded. The cities of Umuahia and Owerri in Abia and Imo states, respectively being the hotbeds of baby factory phenomenon, were purposively selected. Key informant interviews were conducted with the three newspapers editors and nine reporters (non-crime) journalists. Four Focus Group Discussions were conducted with newspaper editors, correspondents from a crime security association, Igbo males and Igbo females. In-depth interviews were held with eight baby merchants, seven baby clients, five rescued pregnant women in Owerri; six police officers, two officials of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, four baby factory owners, 10 baby factory operators and eight community leaders in Umuahia. Data were thematically and content-analysed. Although journalists observed that they gave considerable coverage to the baby factory phenomenon, their views were not confirmed by the number of reports in the newspapers. There were 35 reports on baby factory in the period under review, of which only 14 focused on the issue in southeastern Nigeria. The Sun newspaper, which allotted more pages to crime and the South-East, had most publications (11), while publications were fewer in The Punch (2) and Nigerian Tribune (1). The police set the agenda for the media as journalists relied on press releases and parade of arrested suspects rather than on investigative reporting, a situation the journalists blamed on the secretive nature of the phenomenon. Abia State, with a higher rate of unmarried teenage pregnancy, had more reports on baby factory. The media also placed more emphasis on baby factory as a female crime than on men who abandoned their ‘barren’ wives and pregnant girlfriends. The Igbo adults condemned baby factory as un-cultural, although the female respondents showed empathy towards those arrested for baby factory crime. They, along with security agents and actors in baby factory, blamed the Igbo culture of male heir preference, dispositions towards childlessness, child adoption and unmarried teenage pregnancy as facilitators of the baby factory reality, but the Igbo male disagreed. The Nigerian print media underreported the issues of baby factory and cultural attitude towards the phenomenon is divided along gender lines. The media should report more on baby factory menace as a national crisis instead of projecting the phenomenon as a female crime.