Overview
USAIM supports the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Project Trafficked Children of Ghana. This program is fighting to help hundreds of children forcibly taken from their families to work in the fishing villages along Lake Volta in Ghana. Your donations can help reunite them with their families, send them to school, and keep them from once again being caught up in this terrifying net of forced child labor.
Trafficked Children in Ghana Project
For the past three years, IOM has rescued hundreds of children. The children were forced to engage in fishing under life-threatening conditions along Lake Volta at Yeji in the Brong Ahafo and Northern Regions of Ghana. This project brought the children back to their families and enrolled them in schools or apprenticeships in their home communities. The process continues by delivering comprehensive rehabilitation, reintegration, and follow-up assistance to these traumatized children.
This project seeks to protect the children from being once again caught up in the net of forced labour. The Project will provide continuous support to rehabilitate, reintegrate, and monitor them for at least one year following their rescue and return to their home communities.
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Fishing children draw nets on the shores of
Lake Volta, Ghana
Photo: IOM 2007 Eric Peasah
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What your donation supports:
- Provide continuous medical assistance and psycho-social counseling to each sponsored child
- Establish and expand extracurricular activities designed to further each child’s education and further reintegrate the child into the community
- Assign a local mentor/tutor to each child to provide encouragement and support
- Engage children in recreational activities by involving the children in sports and cultural events in their home communities
- Monitor and evaluate the progress made by the children in order to provide follow-up assistance
We need your help. Please help protect these children from being caught in the terrifying net of forced labor.
IOM staff in Ghana recently came across a young boy of 9. His name is Gabriel, but his friends call him ‘Macho’ because he has been able to free himself several times from underwater fishing nets before drowning. Your donations, coupled with funding from the US Government, have freed to date 612 other boys and girls from this nightmare.
Please continue to support this project and help rescue and rehabilitate these children, reunite them with their families, and keep them from being re-trafficked.
Kojo's Story
Kojo shivering in a fishing boat on the lake
Photo by Claire Dillon, 2008 |
Among the trafficked children rescued this January is 12 year old Kojo who hails from Gomoa-Dego, a small community near Apam in the Central Region. Kojo had been working in the fishing industry for five years. When he was seven years old, Kojo’s father took him to Abidjan in Cote D’Ivoire, where he was given to a fisherman to work for a period of two years. According to Kojo, during his stay in Abidjan he went fishing for long hours, ate only once a day, and was often mistreated. After more than two years, his father brought him back to Gomoa-Dego. Kojo’s grandmother pleaded with the father to send the boy to school but instead he took him to Kete-Krachi where he was handed over to a fisherman on Lake Volta.
Kojo told IOM that his life in Kete-Krachi was even more difficult than in Abidjan because he often had to dive to the bottom of the lake to untangle nets that were caught on tree stumps, a dangerous chore that he was not required to do in Abidjan.
Kojo was not on the original list of children to be rescued this year, but on 20 January, while on the lake around 5:30am, IOM staff saw him working with a fisherman. The boy was diving in and out of the water and shivering from the cold. IOM staff approached the fisherman and attempted to negotiate Kojo’s release, but the fisherman refused. IOM reported the incident to the Chief of the village, who had received awareness training and is an advocate of the IOM project. The father and the fisherman begrudgingly released him the next day.
Kojo was successfully rescued during this mission along with 35 other children. He expressed his happiness at being rescued and, at that time, said that he would really like to go to school so that he can become either a driver or a football player.
As part of the Counter-Trafficking Reintegration process, rescued children are sent to a shelter to undergo three months of rehabilitation before being reunited with their families and reintegrated into their communities. Kojo, together with other rescued children, was sent to the Madina Social Welfare Rehabilitation Center, near Accra. At the rehabilitation center Kojo and the other children received medical care, creative therapy and basic education in math and literacy. Kojo made many friends at the center due to his jovial and down-to-earth demeanor. 
Prior to reuniting the rescued children with their families, “family tracing” activities are conducted to assess the family’s readiness to receive the child, to assess the home environment and to prepare the child for reintegration. Kojo’s family was traced to Abusenyi, a sub-locality in Gomoa-Dego, Central Region. Sadly, on 15 May, the day of the reunification ceremony, Kojo’s family could not attend. But two days later Kojo was reunited with his family.
Kojo is doing well at home and enjoys being among his peers. Best of all, his dream of attending school has finally come true. At school Kojo is interested and engaged in his classes. According to his teachers, there are occasional looks of profound sadness in his eyes, showing traces of his past experience. But attending school is a great new opportunity for Kojo and he is eager to make up for lost time. He told IOM staff that he aspires to learn as much as possible and grow up to be a responsible citizen and a “kraakye” (an educated person in the Fante language).
Challenges still remain for Kojo as a child growing up in an impoverished rural community that still contains the structural elements that often lead to human trafficking. It is important that he remain motivated to stay in school, thus preventing him from being re-trafficked.
Kojo’s guardian and teachers have been counseled and asked to monitor his growth and development carefully and to take a keen interest in his life. Kojo’s guardian has also been assessed for micro-credit assistance.
Additionally, Kojo has been referred to the local NGO Pro-Link, which provides a clinical psychologist and a social worker for monitoring and counseling throughout his reintegration.
U.S. tax deductible donations may be made by check or money order payable to: U.S. Association for International Migration (USAIM); the 501 (c) 3 partner of IOM in the United States or, to donate online, please click the Donate Now button above.
