Woman, 40, Jailed For Hiring Kids To Beg

A 40-year old woman has been sentenced to three months imprisonment for begging for alms with five children in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
The woman, Jemilat Oseni from Osun State, was arrested at Seme Border with five children begging for alms by officials of the Lagos State Taskforce on Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit. She was arraigned at the Special Offences Court in Alausa, Ikeja, for illegally being in possession of children not hers to beg for alms and for violating the rights of the children.
The age of the children range between nine months and 11 years. Two of the children belong to Mrs Rainat Ado and Mrs Zainab Abubakar. Two of the remaining children were her grand children while the 11 years old child is her own child.
According to them, Oseni told them that she wanted to use the children to smuggle some goods from Benin Republic, saying that with the children with her, custom officers would have pity and allow her to go.
They said the culprit usually gives them rice whenever she returned from her business.
A staff of the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, WAPA, had seen the woman begging for alms with the children at Seme Border and reported the matter to the taskforce officials.
After she was sentenced to three months imprisonment at Kirikiri Prison, the five children have been kept in the custody of the WAPA Ministry. The other two women, who gave out their children for the business, were fined N10, 000 each by the court.