A Magistrate Court sitting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital has sentenced two young women to twelve years imprisonment for conspiracy and child trafficking.
The convicts identified as Chinaza Smart and Amarachi Ahukanna were convicted for conspiring to sell a two-year-old boy, Daniel Smart for the sum of N400,000 to a woman simply identified as Precious, who is now at large.
In her judgement, the Presiding Chief Magistrate, Felicitas Amanze, described the crime as “heinous” against an innocent child whose whereabouts is still unknown to date.
She held that the accused persons were guilty of the crime noting that the 2nd Defendant, Amarachi Ahukanna, who introduced the first defendant, Chinaza Smart to the child trafficking business lied to the court.
According to the ruling, Ahukanna lied that she did not convince the first defendant to sell her son, in order to raise money to travel to Dubai where she can earn N400,000 every month.
The Chief Magistrate held that the five years sentence on count one and seven years on other charges are to run consecutively.
Speaking to journalists outside the courtroom, the representative of the Federation of International Female Lawyers (FIDA), Rivers State chapter, Esther Achor-Korienta, said FIDA is happy with the judgment delivered and would ensure that child trafficking stops in the state.
