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By Madu Obi
The Children, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Court, sitting in Awka, Anambra State, has sentenced two women for alleged child theft.
The women, Faith Obi, 32, and Chinenye Obete, 41, were sentenced by the Chief Magistrate in charge of the court.
Obi is from Akpakumeze in Udi, Enugu State and Obete is from Ezamgbo in Ebonyi State.
The second defendant is still at large.
They were arraigned on a five-count charge bordering on child stealing, abduction and illegal dealing in children.
The defendants were also charged for fraudulently enticing and harbouring a seven-year-old boy, and forcefully isolating the child from the lawful possession of the parents, punishable under the Criminal Code, Laws of Anambra State of Nigeria, 1991, and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition and Protection) Laws of Anambra State, 2017 respectively.
They were said to have committed the offence sometime in 2023 and during the hearing of the case, were given a grace period of two weeks by the court to produce the stolen baby, which they failed to do.
In her judgment, the Presiding Chief Magistrate, Genevieve Osakwe, stated that the defendants had been found guilty on all the five charges brought against them.
According to the Chief Magistrate, based on the oral testimonies of the defendants and the submissions of the plaintiff witnesses, as well as other materials placed before the court, in respect of the case; there were overwhelming pieces of evidence against the defendants, adding that the prosecutor had proved the case beyond reasonable doubts.
They were therefore both sentenced four years imprisonment in count one; five years imprisonment in count two; five years imprisonment in count three; five years imprisonment in count four and a term of six months imprisonment in court five.
The court however, declared that all the sentences would run concurrently, without any option of fine.
Reacting to the sentences, the Anambra State Commissioner for Women and Social Welfare, Ify Obinabo, expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the court judgment and warned intending offenders to leave the state as the present administration would not hesitate to put them where they belong.
Obinabo also appreciated the efforts of the court in seeing that children were protected in the state and promised to do everything within her powers to bring the second suspect, now at large, to book.
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