The Global Fund For Children

A Gift That Gives to Rescued Child Slaves

• By Emmanuel Otoo on November 29th, 2011
• Category: Blog, Featured, Sub-Saharan Africa

Washington, DC — Child labor, child trafficking, and modern-day slavery are problems with vast dimensions in many economic sectors in Africa, especially agriculture, tourism (specifically sex tourism), fisheries, mining, local transportation, and domestic service. In Ghana, the number of working children between the ages of 5 and 17 is estimated to be 6,361,110 (about 35.5 percent of the national child population), and of these children, an estimated 20 percent, or about 2,474,545, are trafficked and exploited (Ghana Child Labor Study 2003). While grassroots organizations, along with their stakeholders and strategic allies, are creating and implementing specific and sustainable solutions to child trafficking in Ghana, they have limited resources and capacity, and there is the need for a broad-based approach and effective partnering to support their efforts.

Ghanaian nongovernmental organizations estimate that several thousand trafficked children are held in fishing communities at many locations around Lake Volta. Estimates have varied widely, ranging from 4,000 to 10,000. These vulnerable children suffer a combination of abuse, exploitation, overwork, and neglect, and they are deprived of their basic human rights. The abuses these children face are evidenced in the medical reports of rescued children. These reports consistently demonstrate that almost half of the children suffer from a serious lack of basic healthcare, which exacerbates illnesses related to their labor in the fishing industry. Their illnesses and symptoms include malaria, skin infections, ear infections, blood in urine, boils on the neck and abdominal wall, chest infections, stomach pain, vomiting, and chronic malnutrition.

Some of the children have been enslaved because they have lost one or both of their parents, sometimes through AIDS. Poverty is another factor in the trafficking of children. Parents struggling to feed their families pass the children on to extended family members or acquaintances, with the hope of providing them with better opportunities elsewhere. Other parents are approached by individuals who typically pay the parents $50 to $100, passed off as an advance payment of the child’s wages. The buyers then traffic the children hundreds of miles away to Lake Volta, where the size of the fish caught in fine mesh nets calls for tiny hands and unpaid labor. Many of the fishermen were former child laborers in the fishing industry themselves, and as fish are increasingly scarce in certain parts of the lake, the fishermen rely on child labor to make a living. Many fishermen hold just a few children and do not turn a sizable profit. However, there are reports of more lucrative operations holding larger numbers of trafficked children on the remote islands of Lake Volta.

In the Lake Volta region, many girls are trafficked into domestic servitude, in addition to processing the fish onshore, and are often vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Boys are typically exploited for physical labor such as hauling in the nets, removing the fish, and diving deep into the lake to disentangle the nets from tree stumps. Children rescued by grassroots organizations recall being forced to work for 10- to 12-hour stretches without food. They also describe their fear of drowning, a common cause of death or injury among children trafficked into this region.

Challenging Heights is a child-oriented local NGO based in Winneba, Ghana, that works with other stakeholders to rescue children trafficked into slavery in the Lake Volta area. The executive director of Challenging Heights, James Kofi Annan, was recently in Washington, DC, to participate in the third annual DC Stop Modern Slavery Walk, which took place on October 22. (See video below)

James, together with four other survivors of human trafficking, motivated the participants of the walk to action with stories about their experiences and their efforts to address modern-day slavery. Challenging Heights, a GFC grantee partner since 2007, focuses on strengthening the capacity of communities and grassroots structures in both Winneba and island communities on Lake Volta to help build resistance against slavery. Among the activities Challenging Heights is involved in are creating awareness about child trafficking and supporting families in rescuing their trafficked and enslaved children. Rescued children who are traumatized are rehabilitated at Challenging Heights’ transitional shelter, where they are also taught how to read and write and are prepared to enter formal education. They are then reunited with their families and enrolled in school.

To support Challenging Heights’ efforts to combat modern-day slavery and protect the interests of children, GFC has initiated a campaign to buy a book to support Challenging Heights’ work. For every Global Fund for Children book purchased between November 30 and December 24, 2011, one book will be donated to Challenging Heights. Our goal is to provide these children with up to 500 new books. Thank you in advance for your support.