When an officer of the Child Labour Unit of the Ministry of Employment and Manpower Development in Ghana says "that children are sold, some as low as ?500,000 at some markets in Accra," you know there is problem. This a government talking about slavery, so let's talk about schools. To be precise, let's talk about basic education in Africa and how it is failing the public in one respect.
You ask what child slavery has to do with schools. The answer must be as obvious as the cause is apparent. When children are available in such large numbers on the continent for sale it means one thing: The same children are not in school. The problem is universal in Africa.
All you need is to do is to hear the story of Sifiso Mngmezulu of Swaziland, as reported by The Independent of UK. At age 19, he is already the head of a household of five siblings. All of them are out of school because Mngwelezulu cannot afford the fees.
So what is happening to the school system in Ghana and other places in Africa and what is government's plan for cure?
The officer quoted at the beginning spoke at a seminar held in Kumasi, Ghana, organized recently by the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) of the International Labor Organisation (ILO), in collaboration with the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA). She named markets at Maamobi, Nima, Agbogbloshie and Makola as key places where children are sold.
Cry all you want about child slavery, but when the economy is shot as is the case of many countries in Africa, you are bound to hear more of such stories. However, poverty of a nation is no excuse. And, certainly, seminars and no actions are not remedies either.
Education is the only remedy that will fight poverty and child labour abuses with equal intensity. Constant accusations of child slavery in Ghana and elsewhere, therefore, make the integrity of the education system in Africa suspect.
In 1997, one Dr. Felix Agyako wrote for "Ghana Review" that "The evidence is clear that continuous and sustainable development of Ghana will continue to depend on education. It is imperative, therefore, that we begin immediately to patch up the very huge cracks that have begun to show in the foundation of our educational system... before education begins to make contributions to national decline instead of national development."
Back in 1995, Oxfam issued a policy paper on education at a UN Social Conference on education. In it was the statement: "Today, sub-Saharan Africa accounts for one-third of the total out-of-school population. On current trends, it will account for three-quarters of the total in 2015."
These articles and reports were issued over five years ago. But the date is significant because they underlined long ago the risk and warned that lack of a sensible educational policy was a menace to society.
Statistics for Ghana, for instance, are grim today. One aspect, according to the official quoted at Kumasi, admits that "Over 800,000 children in Ghana (are) involved in hazardous labour and that there was evidence to show that the menace was on the increase." This is a manifestation of the Oxfam prediction of 1995.
School systems in many countries in Africa are failing kids. Even if one should doubt the veracity of the charge of child slavery, the reality is in the case of Ghana, it is government itself that is admitting the charge. The admission is commendable, but it still leaves a hole. To fail to repair this hole and to continue to support the same education policy is to invite a future full of chaos and crime. Putting a child to work is not the crime. Every society needs cheap labour to buttress her economy. More often than not children form parts of this labour force. In the U.S they distribute newspapers and flip hamburgers. The African culture is familiar with kids helping adults on farms and in market places. These chores not only contribute to the overall economy, but provide experience for future work in adult world. However, turning what should be temporary, occasional jobs into permanent, onerous ones for brittle kids as young as 14 years and under is the crime that child slavery is all about.
It used to be that schools were good wardens for children. Stages in primary and secondary education sheltered children from exploitation. We went to schools where teachers knew parents, went to church with them, or met them at the same market places. And our mates in school knew who we were and where we lived. Schools were very much part of the community or neighbourhood. There were not many telephones back then. But one absence from class and a parent knew.
Under the above conditions, combating truancy was a not a problem and the recruitment of children into slave labour was held in check.
How? The headmaster or teacher would send two big schoolmates after the truant. Usually, they were overzealous and eager to do the job. Once found, the truant would either be brought to school to face punishment or left to stay at home if found sick. The slave trader didn't have a niche. No budget or cost was allocated to this simple exercise of surveillance, but it worked. And the nation reaped huge benefits in class attendance and education.
Some will retort that those were the days when the population of Ghana for instance stood at 50% less. But that begs the question: What then should be done when the same population reaches 100% plus?
Unwise government policies have gutted the free educational systems of places like Ghana, starting in the 70s. Budget for education dwindled as school attendance became increasingly expensive. Parents were forced to carry more of the cost of educating their children. Today many components of basic education are not affordable to the majority; and what is affordable is junk education.
The Oxfam's report of 1995 admitted that "Sometimes the problem is that school's not free, and fees break the family budget. And that's before buying the pens, pencils, paper, and books they need. For others, school fees are no obstacle - because there's no school. And no teachers."
No wonder kids who should be in school, and protected, have fallen prey to slave traders. Parents who cannot afford tuition fees don't care much if their children played truant. And neighbours become callous to the fate of these truants because they are also suffering the same economic crunch.
The advanced countries know the remedy. Even capitalist societies like the U.S have open and free access to education up to high school.
The importance of keeping children safe in schools cannot be overstated. As the seminar in Kumasi pointed out "these kids are transported to Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Gabon, in a complete chain involving those who recruit the children, (and) those who transport them for sale". The tragedy is not mostly because the trade takes place, but that it takes place at all under the idle eyes of a chain of governments in the region.
Yet, the governments keep putting the squeeze on education just so budgets could be balanced, forgetting that investment in education is self-perpetuating and rewarding. It is highly unlikely for children whose parents are educated to fall prey to child slavery. It follows that these children, once educated, are also more likely to raise their own for a future free of bondage.
While this article does not advocate free education at all levels, hopefully, it will draw attention to the fact that schools are as necessary a social and economic infrastructure as the roads, and the factory we finance and build with fanfare. In the end, it is the only least costly approach to a safe future.
Oxfam noted also that "education systems are gatekeepers of privilege and opportunity, and reforming education to better serve poverty eradication goals is a necessary political process".
The need to mobilize political will and the resources to deliver at least free basic (primary and secondary) education to the public cannot be over stated. The victims of the insensitive school system of today are the poor. The rest will be condemned to suffer their grudge in the future.
A reasonable surcharge on the value of new houses could go a long way to start a free educational fund.
