Women now fake pregnancies with steroids to deceive husbands – Ex-NAPTIP DG

Former Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Julie Okah-Donli, has alleged that some women use steroids to fake pregnancies before acquiring babies to convince their husbands they have given birth.

Okah-Donli made the claims during an interview on the Kaa Truths Podcast, a clip of which resurfaced on Tuesday. She spoke about what she described as the operations of alleged fake pregnancy syndicates and baby trafficking networks in Nigeria.

According to her, women involved in the alleged scheme are administered steroids that make them appear visibly pregnant.

"They are injected with steroids. So when they inject them with these steroids, it gives them the semblance of a pregnant woman. Their faces are bloated up, and their tummies are actually very big. They look pregnant, but they are not pregnant," she said.

She further alleged that the women simulate common pregnancy symptoms, including morning sickness, vomiting and excessive spitting, particularly when their husbands are present.

"When their husbands are around, they pretend to be suffering from morning sickness. They spit, they pretend to throw up and all sorts of funny things," she said.

Okah-Donli also claimed that the purported childbirth is often staged when the husband is away or temporarily sent out of the house.

"When it's time to have the baby, they usually have the baby when the man has travelled. Then he comes back to see a baby in the house. But sometimes, if it's the kind of man that doesn't travel, they ask him to go and buy something. By the time the man comes back, it's, 'Congratulations, you have a baby,'" she alleged.

The former NAPTIP boss further claimed that some women undergo procedures designed to create the appearance of having delivered through a caesarean section.

"They actually do open them up to make it look like they had a CS. That's how desperate these guys are. They stitch them back up," she alleged.

Okah-Donli linked the alleged practice to cases in which paternity tests reveal that children are not biologically related to their presumed fathers. She argued that maternity tests should also be conducted in such cases to determine whether the woman actually gave birth to the child.

"We started finding out that during a paternity test, a lot of children were not the children of the man. But one thing they failed to do was maternity test, which would have confirmed that the women did not have the children," she said.

According to her, maternity testing could help investigators establish whether a child was allegedly obtained through illegal means and assist in uncovering cases of baby trafficking.

"The man is thinking this woman cheated on me, whereas the woman bought the baby. So it's not even the mother. You can have the maternity test to be sure that this woman is not the mother of the baby, and then you begin to investigate where the baby came from," she said.

She also alleged that some women falsely claim to have delivered multiple births because it makes the deception easier.

"Most of them say they have twins. They have triplets. They have quadruplets. Now everybody seems to be having twins and triplets and quadruplets because it's easier for them to just buy them once and for all and deceive themselves and the world," she alleged.

Okah-Donli's claims have not been independently verified, and she did not provide specific evidence or data during the interview to substantiate the allegations.