Baby factories are new systematic abuse structures that are promoting infant trafficking, neo‐slavery and the exploitation of young women with unwanted pregnancies in Nigeria. Since this practice was first described in 2006, it has been growing rather than abating. This paper reviews the scientific literature, along with media reports, and critiques this phenomenon from a children's rights' perspective. Children born into baby factories are denied various civil rights. They also suffer abuse in the baby factories and as a consequence of being born in such places. This abuse can be classified into immediate and long term. Immediate abuse includes inadequate care and its repercussions, denial of birth registration, illegal adoption and murder. Long‐term or delayed abuse that they may be exposed to includes health‐related consequences, neglect, death, child labour, prostitution and other sexual abuse, organ trafficking and recruitment as child soldiers. Various factors are thought to drive the baby factory phenomenon which include poverty, high infertility rates and the profitability of local and inter‐country adoptions. Programmes directed at addressing the root cause of the problem are needed in order to eliminate infant trafficking. Also, clear laws that delineate inter‐country adoption and infant trafficking need to be enacted. Most importantly, baby factories need to be recognised as child trafficking routes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. ‘New systematic abuse structures that are promoting infant trafficking, neo‐slavery and the exploitation of young women’ Key Practitioner Messages: A new type of child abuse and human trafficking that targets infants has emerged in Nigeria in what are described as ‘baby factories’. Baby factories are criminal entities that exploit young girls with unwanted pregnancies and the practice is growing. Children born in baby factories suffer a range of immediate abuses and are exposed to long-term abuses. Baby factories violate several articles in the Convention on the Rights of a Child. ‘Criminal entities that exploit young girls with unwanted pregnancies’