Health authorities should do more to contain the problem
For a long time, there have been reports that some fertility clinics in the country are harvesting eggs of young girls in exchange for money. Even when the World Health Organisation (WHO) prescribes that egg harvesting, just like blood donation, must not be traded for financial gains, a report by ‘Daily Trust’ newspaper has exposed this growing desperation among young women. In many cases, underage victims are coerced into trading their eggs monthly despite medical prescription that no one should have her eggs harvested more than twice a year.
The Plateau State Gender and Equal Opportunity Commission (PLASGEOC) has disclosed that young women in the state are selling their egg cells at a particular hospital. “Young girls now sell their ova to buy expensive phones or fund their lifestyles. If they remove your ovum, they give you either N120,000 or N150,000,” the commission’s spokesperson, Mrs Nene Dung, recently disclosed. “We told students of the danger of such practice and warned them to stop selling their Ova. The problem is rampant not only in communities but in schools.” But this challenge is not restricted to Plateau State. It is a national malaise.
