Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
The Children, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Chief Magistrate Court sitting in Awka, has sentenced a 35-year-old woman to prison in Awka for offences of child labor, child exploitation and abduction of children.
The convict, named Success James, was prosecuted before the Court on eight-count charge and found guilty of seven charges by the trial Magistrate.
Delivering judgment on the case, the Chief Magistrate, Genevieve Osakwe, found James guilty of count one and sentenced her to five years imprisonment.
Other counts, attracted 30 years imprisonment cumulatively.
The Chief Magistrate, however, declared that all the sentences would run concurrently, without any option of fine.
Ikengaonline reports that the convict was earlier apprehended at Onitsha and arraigned before the Chief Magistrate Court in Awka, sometime in December, 2022, for abducting four teenage girls and subjecting them to child labour and sexual exploitation.
Similarly, four teenage girls were rescued by the Honorable Commissioner for Women and Social Welfare, Mr Ify Obinabo, about two days to Christmas, 2022.
The girls who are 13 and 15 years old respectively, all hail from Akwa Ibom State.
In their separate evidence before the Court, the victims told the Court that they were lured into prostitution business by one Aunty Success who told them that she had a job opportunity for them in Agbor, Delta state, where they would be selling drinks in a beer parlor, but on getting to Agbor, they discovered that they were brought to become prostitutes.
Reacting to the judgment, the Women and Social Welfare Commissioner, Mrs Obinabo, commended the speedy trial of the case and revealed that the children had been enrolled in school, while those who preferred skills acquisition had started acquiring skills of their choice at the state-owned Skills Acquisition Center, in Awka.
