Child Trafficking

 

This week I was given the opportunity to travel  to the Volta Region with my human rights organization. It is a region in the north of Lake Volta where fishing is one of the main industries. It is also a place where child trafficking is commonplace. The region has many small islands with fishing communities therefore it is difficult to regulate. This is compounded by the fact the police do nothing to inhibit the trading. In fact they helped cover up a rape murder of a trafficked child in the community. The police in Ghana can be easily bought.

            The workshop received a good response from the townspeople. We had a few role-plays talking about child labor and child trafficking. Even though it went well I can’t help but wonder if we reached the right audience. The townspeople already know that this practice is wrong. Regardless they received a bit more information on more of the details surrounding this subject. Hopefully it will reach the ears of the fishermen. 

The most important part of the trip for me was going to an island which had some trafficked children.  Powerful stuff. I talked with one child, Jacob, for an hour about his life there. How he had wanted to become a football player and about what he does now. He is sixteen years old and has been working for three years. He enjoys mechanics, carpentry, and Ghanaian music. He has big dreams of becoming a Ghanaian footballer. And he is stuck here. He has a sister and two brothers. In fact one of the reasons he stays here is to provide his sister with schooling. His brother was freed by an advocacy group last month. I do not know which is worse- those children who are sold when they are three or four and grow up in servitude without the ability to really find out what they enjoy, what they are good at, what there dreams are, or those like Jacob- who have dreams but cannot get out. He has no idea when he will be able to leave. His family is separated. Yet he is strong, he does not give up, he still has pride in who he is. It was touching. I think that it is something that will have an affect on me in my future. It is so sickening that these children were sold by their parents for the equivalent of thirty dollars. Thirty dollars for a human life. A child's life. Some of these children work 12 or 13 hours of hard labor a day. They get one meal of Banku a day. They do not receive proper schooling and are not given anything other then rags to where. They are simply expendable to there masters. The advocacy group tries to go through the law but it can take up to three months to get the child freed. By this time many have already drowned. The other method is to try to convince the masters to free the children willingly. If they comply they give them fishing equipment. It is sad to see that the law cannot be enforced rather criminals must be bartered with. After the children are released the advocacy group houses and educates the children and brings them back to the parents, where they moniter them. It costs the group an average of six hundred cedi (dollars) to reintegrate the child. Leaving was not easy. I just wanted to take the trafficked children away. It makes a whole lot more sense. But this cannot be done without the help of police, something which is impossible to gain. 

Slave Castles at Elmina and Cape Coast

Elmina Slave Castle (ruled principally by the dutch)

Reflection on Slave Castles at Cape Coast and Elmina.

The slave castles showed me a side of my culture that is often laid aside, swept into a corner. Sure, we celebrate those African Americans who had a great impact on the culture of the Americas. We are told of some stories of the hardships faced by the African- Americans. But we do not personalize this history. We hold it at armslength. It is more comfortable there-safer. I think this is one of our greatest weaknesses, that we find it so easy to critique others failures yet so difficult to apply them to ourselves. Obviously I do not think that slavery will be repeated but discrimination is ever present. The principle fault of the slave traders was that they did not see the Africans as people. The ignorance shown by the Europeans is hard to believe. That they did not recognize the abilities and nobility of this race, inexcusable. Something as flippant and insignificant as skin colour was enough to stop them from realizing their similarities. Still does. There is no small form of discrimination. There is no form which can be forgiven. 

Cape Coast Castle (ruled principally by the English)

View of battlements at Cape Coast

            Walking through the slave castles and seeing the disgusting practices that were carried out here really brought it home. The only history I learned in school was the short description of the African slaves in the Americas. It was so much bigger then that. Here I learned about the cultures in Africa before the slave trade. The cultures that were abruptly halted as a result of the slave trade. In a culture where family group and ancestry was even more important then in Western society, being separated from your relatives and ancestors is a nightmare.  This was compounded by livestock-like living conditions, and cruel treatment. One room was set aside for those who were sentenced to death because they broke a law. They put twenty slaves in this small room. They would wait until the last person was dead before removing the bodies. In the ships they were stacked head to toe with other slaves. Chained to the ground. Because they were cramped so closely in the slave castle, and they were deathly tired, they were forced relieve themselves on the ground where they slept. The males and females were separated until they were put on the slave ships. Families were separated even within the same castle. Slaves were branded on the forehead for which country they belonged.  These are only some of the atrocities that were done here. 

It was an eye-opening experience and not one I will soon forget.