A 38-year-old mother identified as Veronica Igwe has been nabbed after she reportedly used her 4-year old daughter whose name was given as Uloma Igwe as collateral for her N100 debt in Ebonyi State. reports revealed that Veronica owed one Nwali Josephine, N100 from their transaction at Abakaliki Rice Mill in 2017. Unable to pay back the debt after much asking from the woman she owed, Veronica exchanged her daughter to pay off the loan. Cecilia Elom of the Child Abuse /Maltreatment Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, speaking on the incident said the ministry received an emergency call on Tuesday, tipping them off about the sad incident. She said officials immediately stormed the CAS campus of Ebonyi State University Abakaliki, where the alleged creditor resides. “On reaching the residence, we saw little Uloma Igwe with another seven – year- old boy hawking. On interrogation, they confessed to having been lured into hawking by the creditor. Uloma ’s mother, Veronica, informed our officials that she did not even know the woman she gave her child to. She added that said she then suggested to her debtor that she could bring one of her children in exchange for the debt. She maintained that she did not know the residence of the woman she handed her daughter to, but that the transaction took place at the rice mill where they do daily rice transactions. Officials of the Ministry of Women Affairs invited Mrs. Josephine Nwali to the Office, from where she was handed over to the Ebonyi State Police Command for interrogation, ” Elom said. The Ministry of Women Affairs has since made arrangement to take little Uloma Igwe to a hospital for proper medical treatment. 
