AFRICA/GHANA - Exploited child workers on Lake Volta rescued and rehabilitated by international programme

Accra (Fides Service)- Another 114 children have been rescued from forced labour in Central Ghana thanks to a programme of the International Organisation for Migration IOM. The children were victims of traffickers without scruples who put them to work in fishing communities in Yeji on the northern banks of Lake Volta. The children, all from very poor families, were sold by their parents for 170 US dollars.
Now, after spending two weeks in a transit centre in Yeji, these 114 children are receiving medical and psychological assistance from IOM and government personnel at a IOM camp near the town of Mankessim in central Ghana. After completing the programme of rehabilitation in April the children will be reunited with their families which will receive assistance to facilitate the children’s reinsertion.
So far a total of 544 children have been rescued and returned to their families thanks to the IOM programme funded by the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration of the US State Department. The children reunited with their parents all follow regular school programmes.
Village elders and chiefs support the programme often acting as mediators with the fishermen who acquired the children. Those fishermen who release the children receive in return training to improve fishing techniques or micro-credits to start other businesses.
IOM has also started a programme to help poor families improve their living standard so they will no longer be forced to sell their children. Most of these little slaves are aged between 6 and 14. Boys are used in the fishing industry and girls are used as cooks and servants. They work long hours, receive no pay and only a minimum amount of food. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 16/2/2005 righe 29 parole 327)