Trafficked Kids

My afternoon was spent with children who'd been trafficked and just recently rescued. Yes, basically kids in servitude here in Ghana by fellow Ghanaians. I interviewed two of them but there were 25 of them who had been released and are going to be reunited with their families tomorrow. Some of these kids were as young as 5 or 6. Many of the older ones (13-15) had been in servitude since they were 5 or 6. One of the boys told me he didn't know how old he was when he was taken away (purportedly to be given the chance to go to school) but went to bring in a smaller boy and said "this is how big I was when I was taken away."

Rejoice, our housekeeper, had wanted to come with me and I'm glad she did. She too is from the Volta region where these kids were from and so was able to translate from Ewe to English. A couple of times she started crying as she translated.

The story goes like this. Many of these kids are born into poor, large families with many kids and with not enough food or enough money to put them in school. Someone will come along and say they'll take one or two of the kids and put them into school. The parents agree (sometimes they're given a small sum of money). The kid goes with the man who puts them into school for a week or so. After one week, the man takes them out of school and takes them away, forcing them to do work.

Both boys and girls are taken. The girls will be forced to cook, to collect firewood and water and various other tasks while the boys are usually forced to work in the fishing industry. Some die. Why? Because their job is to dive to the bottom of Lake Volta to untangle the nets that have gotten caught on the tree stumps in the lake. Some of the boys get eaten by crocodiles, some get stuck in the sucking mud and can't get up for air. Others, like Kwame's brother James, just disappeared until his dead, bloated body showed up 3 days later.

Kwame is one of the boys that I interviewed. He's 15. He's the one who said he had no idea of how old he was when he was taken from his family but showed me by the size of another young boy. I'm guessing he was around 6 or 7 when he was taken. He hasn't seen his family in 8 years. But he'll get to see them for the first time in 8 years tomorrow.

These 25 kids were rescued by an organization called APPLE several weeks ago. They spend a few weeks at the Social Welfare Center before they're reunited with their families.

I think one of the things that astounded me the most was that Kwame just spoke so easily about the whole ordeal. I mean 8 years of his life as a slave. His childhood gone forever. Yet he is hopeful about he future. He wants to be a carpenter. And he wants to make sure that no other kid should have to endure what he did.