Poverty has forced some Ghanaian parents to sell their children into slavery. The Child trafficking syndicates, which buy the children, take them to some neighbouring West African countries, where the children are re-sold to work in households and on farms.
Indications are that some parents give away their children to people they trust who offered to help care for the them. But the children later end up in countries like Togo and the Ivory Coast as slaves. Some of these children are also forced to work in wealthy homes in Accra and other major cities in Ghana.
Mrs Hinson Ekong, is a child-rights activist who have been campaigning for the elimination of child labour and trafficking. She says despite the difficult economic situation in the country, parents must take ultimate responsibility for the upkeep of their children. Mrs Hinson Ekong wonders why parents give birth to many children despite the availability of free family planning methods and ends up giving them out into slavery.
Betty Mould Iddrisu, who heads the International Law Division of the Attorney General’s Department, predicts that the modern and even more hideous form of slavery could create overwhelming problems for the country. According to her, cultural practices which encourages people to give birth to more children as a sign of wealth and prosperity has to be done away with.
Betty Mould Iddrisu recommends more public education against child trafficking but more importantly she says, “governments in the West African sub-region must come together and fight against organised criminal activity.”
