I was sure that she could see behind my forced smile! I
could hardly bring myself to touch the woman whose hand I was shaking. I was staring at her face, taking in every little
detail so that I could recognise her when I saw her again. To most people, she
was normal. Like many others, she had sold two of her children and sent them to
work on the Volta lake.
The Volta lake in Ghana is the biggest man-made lake in the
world, the kind that makes tourists gush about its beauty. The lake joins the sea and also boasts
about an economy that thrives on unbelievable abuse of orphaned or trafficked
children. These children are as young as 4-5 years and are sold by their
parents to fishing businessmen for as less as 8 Ghana Cedis ($4). They are paid
nothing but given food everyday. They toil endlessly and sleep on the sea in
their boats. They are required to engage in the notorious deep-sea fishing throughout
the day and night. Deep-sea fishing is a
risk to your life.
According to my field surveyor who did a study on this - “Every
blessed day at least one child is lost to the sea”!
These children are subjected to terrible abuse by their “owners”.
They are beaten and starved if they don’t work. They are robbed of their childhood for absolutely no fault of theirs. It doesn’t matter if they die,
the “owner” would just buy another!
The organisation I work with does wonderful work in
preventing this type of trafficking and rescuing these children!
Parents who are unable to take care of their children or are
in urgent need of money sell their kids to this cause. Many do it just because
they don’t want the responsibility of taking care of the child. Like the woman
I was talking about. She didn’t look particularly poor. She was sitting across
from me, talking and laughing as if she didn’t have a care in the world. I
wonder how she sleeps at night!
Sometimes, I hate that my job exists!
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