Child Labor Trafficking in the Volta Region of Ghana
By Cadee Wambolt
Published Winter 2021
Special thanks to Sam Lofgran for editing and research contributions
Summary+
Ghana’s Lake Volta region is home to over 20,000 child slaves. Due to a combination of preexisting social problems and a distortion of old cultural practices, a dangerous cycle of human trafficking and child labor is occurring. Most of the child slaves on Lake Volta are doing work that is considered hazardous. In fact, Lake Volta attracts a lot of attention for its reputation as an especially traumatic and abusive avenue for child trafficking. Due to its particularly dangerous and abusive nature, these victims of child trafficking are subject to extreme levels of abuse, trauma, death and disease, and a lack of education. Leading practices for combating child trafficking on Lake Volta include rescuing the kids from slavery, reuniting families, rehabilitation programs, and providing opportunities for trafficking victims.
Key Terms+
Exploitation - “The abuse of a child where some form of remuneration is involved or whereby the perpetrators benefit in some manner—monetarily, socially, politically, etc.”1
Legal code - “A more or less systematic and comprehensive written statement of laws.”2
Trafficking - “The recruitment, transportation, transfer . . . of persons, by means of the threat or use of force . . . for the purpose of exploitation.”3
Child labor - “Work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.”4
Context
Q: Where and what is the Volta Region of Ghana?
A: Ghana is a country lying on the coastline of West Africa. The Volta region is one of sixteen administrative regions in Ghana and stretches from Ghana’s east coast through the middle of the country.5 In the 1960s, the Akosombo dam, or the Volta dam, was constructed.6 This created Lake Volta, the fourth largest aquatic reservoir in the world with a shoreline of approximately 5,270 km. Lake Volta is the source of 90% of inland fishery output and 20% of Ghana's total fish catch.7 It is estimated that there are approximately 1,230 rural fishing villages along the Lake Volta shoreline, many of which are inhabited by impoverished populations. Around 300,000 people depend on Lake Volta for their livelihoods, and nearly 80,000 of those individuals are fishermen and another 20,000 operate as fish processors and traders in the various villages.8 In that regard, the Volta Region and the events that take place on its lake, have a direct impact on a large population of people.
Q: Why is Lake Volta so conducive to trafficking?
A: Many of the fishermen on Lake Volta have noticed a drop in the population of fish in the lake, creating a decline in the lake’s profitability.9 This decline could be due to a number of factors, one being overfishing. Because of this decline in resources and the need to bring in the same amount of fish as before, children are often used as cheap labor to increase fishing hauls. Not only are children laborers seen as cost efficient, but their small fingers enable them to release fish from small fishing nets. In a country with widespread unemployment and a 40% poverty rate, the fishermen need to continue bringing in an adequate number of fish despite the depletion of fish stocks. To the fishermen, trafficking children may be seen as an easy, effective, and economic solution.10
Q: What is the difference between child trafficking and child labor?
A: In the situation of Lake Volta, trafficking occurs when a child is taken or kidnapped and then sold or used for the financial benefit of someone else. These children being brought to Lake Volta are being trafficked into child labor, also known as child labor trafficking. Child labor alone can occur through methods aside from trafficking—it can occur when parents or caretakers willingly sell or place children into situations where they are then required to work in a way that is harmful to their development.11 In some situations, the children willingly choose to work to help provide for their families or, in the situation of Lake Volta, because they view learning the skill of fishing to be more important than receiving a proper education. Though this and other methods of coercion may not technically be considered trafficking, it is considered child labor and is detrimental to the child. With that being said, some of the sources used throughout this brief use the two terms interchangeably, though it is important to note that many of the children working on Lake Volta arrived there by means of trafficking, while other children arrived there through other means, though all are involved in child labor.
Q: What are the children being forced to do?
A: Boys are sent to fish on the lake and the girls are tasked with processing, preparing, and selling the fish.12 The children generally work from 5 am to 5 pm, 7 days a week.13
Q: How old are the children?
A: Most of the children working on Lake Volta are around 10 years or younger.14 However, children as young as 5 years old have been seen working on the boats.15
Q: How do the children get placed into this situation?
A: Relatives of the children are commonly the ones involved in the trafficking of children. Out of the children trafficked around Lake Volta, 42% are obtained from their parents, 37% are obtained from relatives other than parents, and only 17% of children offer themselves.16 Traffickers approach this transaction with parents and relatives through a contractual agreement. These agreements usually include some kind of monetary exchange that ranges between 100 and 500 GHS ($90–$400 USD).17 Around 33% of the parents didn’t know about the conditions their children would be living in, and only 15% knew that the conditions were bad.18 Due to both the monetary incentive and the perceived working conditions, many parents who send their children to work on Lake Volta believe they are actually doing a good thing that benefits both the child and family.
Q: What is the public’s opinion on the issue?
A: It appears that villagers surrounding the lake who aren’t participating in the trafficking understand what is going on and dislike it. Because of this, many traffickers will travel to other areas to find and obtain the children. Obtaining children from other areas helps the traffickers in many ways, but especially helps keep the distant communities from the lake unaware of what is actually occurring on the lake and, therefore, parents are more likely to be unaware of the situation they are sending their children into. Because of this, the traffickers are able to easily manipulate the families into sending their children with them. However, due to an increase in the efforts of NGOs, awareness of the situation is growing.19
Contributing Factors
Widespread Poverty
Because of the stress of poverty, “many parents believe that engaging their children in child labour is the only way for families to avoid poverty.”20 Approximately 40% of the population in Ghana live below the poverty line.21 Because of this, poverty becomes a major motivator for trafficking for many reasons. When living in impoverished situations parents and guardians feel additional stress and pressure to figure out how to adequately provide for their families. In hopes of bringing in additional income, many parents have to make the difficult decision to have their child work instead of enrolling them in school. Due to many parents' inability to support their children beyond basic schooling, many parents decide to have their children learn a marketable skill instead of receiving a formal education.22
Sending a child to Lake Volta is believed to be the parents’ method for helping the child avoid falling into poverty later in life.23 This shows that poverty places the parents, and therefore their children, in an extremely vulnerable situation. Additionally, poverty makes families more vulnerable to manipulation by the traffickers and therefore are more likely to allow their children to be placed in poor working conditions.24
Poverty also influences the traffickers themselves. As mentioned previously, fish stocks have been declining which means it takes more time, effort, and manpower to bring in the same number of fish. As children can serve as cheap labor, it is financially beneficial for the fishermen to enlist children to assist in their work. Trafficking children and using them for child labor actually helps the traffickers keep their own children in schol and out of labor.25 In this regard, the traffickers desire to provide a better life for their own family, and so resort to child trafficking to do so.
Promised Compensation
Ghanaians place a lot of value in work and work ethic and are often promised that their children will develop these skills when they go to work on Lake Volta. The traffickers often promise good opportunities for schooling and receiving vocational training, as well as guarantee that they will be fed.26 Many parents actually believe that sending their child to Lake Volta is the best option. Additionally, many believe that learning a trade is more valuable than a formal education especially when obtaining that education is not normally easily accessible. As the traffickers also have financial motivations, they push the families to “do what’s best for the children” and the children end up getting placed in the trafficking situation because the promised compensation appears to positively benefit both the children and their families.27
Lack of Law Enforcement
In 2005, Ghana passed the Human Trafficking Act that aimed to fight against human trafficking in 3 distinct ways: prevention of human trafficking, protection of trafficked persons, and prosecution of traffickers.28 Though the passing of the Human Trafficking Act was a huge step forward for Ghana, it did little in the way of actually solving the problem. Though Ghana has adequate laws set in place to protect children and prevent trafficking, there is little enforcement.29 While the police are aware of the trafficking activity on the lake, it has become so unmanageable that they declare the deaths natural instead of pressing charges against the traffickers. Finding bodies washed ashore is such a regular occurrence that the locals have stopped reporting them, and they also feel that reporting them to law enforcement is pointless.30 The limited efforts of law enforcement to intervene allows traffickers to continue their practice virtually unpunished and unrestricted. In 2015, the Government of Ghana conducted 94 investigations of Lake Volta traffickers, but initiated only 15 prosecutions and convicted only 7 people.31
Ghana does not meet the guidelines outlined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 but are making efforts to comply with the standards.32 Anti-trafficking training has not been provided to prosecutors since 2011, leading to a lack of knowledge and resources among law enforcement.33 This report further supports the claim that though legislation does exist to fight against trafficking, it does little in the way of actually preventing it as many are worried that the traffickers will lose their livelihood in the fishing industry if they no longer use the trafficked children.34
Unofficial Fostering
If families are struggling to provide for their children, blood relatives fostering children is a common cultural practice, particularly if it appears the child will have better opportunities with the relative.35 Unfortunately, the practice of fostering has become a major avenue for child exploitation.36 Oftentimes, children are not trafficked by their parents, but by these distant relatives who do not hold as close of a relationship to the children; in fact, 37% of surveyed community members in districts around Lake Volta said trafficked children are obtained from relatives other than parents. This practice of fostering is very common and trusted, and is thought to be a good way for children to find vocational training, but many traffickers take advantage of the situation.37
Utilizing this practice of unofficial fostering is also an effective avenue for traffickers to take as they avoid direct contact with the immediate family. This is beneficial to the traffickers in two ways: first, it is most likely easier for people to place a child that is not their own into the trafficking situation, especially given the promised compensation; second, the traffickers are harder to trace and harder to prosecute because they never had direct contact with the family.38
Consequences
Child Abuse
Children trafficked on Lake Volta suffer many forms of child abuse and trauma. Reports have shown that at least 87.3% of the children working on the lake suffered from abuse.39 Children working on the lake are subject to long and intense work hours, which can result in sleep deprivation, fishing-related injuries, drowning, malnutrition, and other health problems.40
The work situations for the children are also dangerous. Often, these children have no supervision, including during storms and in the dark. Some children were subject to dangerous jobs such as untangling the nets from branches underwater, which is the most common cause of drowning on the lake.41 Other conditions that children might encounter include “overexposure to rain or sun, overcrowded rooms, inadequate food or drinking water, dangerous sleeping conditions, having no place to sleep or sleeping on the floor, having no clean clothing, and inability to maintain basic hygiene.”42
Physical violence committed against children is widespread in Lake Volta’s fishing industry with parents or guardians in source communities reporting that children were “beaten like goats.”43 Many children reported that they experienced both physical and sexual abuse.44 This abuse can affect the children for the rest of their lives as abuse often leads to health problems, which can occasionally become serious health problems.45 Those who do escape the Volta region and child labor may return to difficult circumstances in their homes and communities, but are also returning with serious injuries and newly acquired trauma from the trafficking situation, making these difficult circumstances even more complicated.46
Mental Trauma
Many of the dangerous conditions that these children are exposed to at Lake Volta can lead to various forms of mental trauma or PTSD. Trauma is incredibly common among the trafficked victims, which will affect their mental and emotional well-being far after the trafficking ends. Key informants observed that many of the survivors displayed signs of trauma and underdeveloped social skills.47 Indicators of trauma include withdrawal from other people, a reluctance to approach others, difficulty making eye contact, a general mistrust of people, fear of being beaten for making small mistakes, and general behavioral issues, including childlike tendencies and emotional outbursts.48 All of these effects of trauma can be detrimental to a child and impact them long after the trafficking situation ends, sometimes leading to increased mental health problems and even loss of memory.49 Additionally, trauma and PTSD are directly correlated with increased health problems, including chronic illnesses that may last throughout their lives.50, 51 Though there is not much information reporting the actual scope or frequency of trauma among children on Lake Volta, it can be assumed through living conditions and experiences while they are in the trafficking situation that long-term trauma will most likely occur in many of the children.
Health Issues
Participating in the risky practices as previously mentioned, in addition to suffering abuse and neglect, places the children in incredibly vulnerable situations where death and disease are common. In a report of 30 trafficked children, it was found that 14 of those children were in need of urgent treatment for health problems and illnesses such as skin infections, stomach pain, chest infections, blood in urine, and malaria.52 While this is a small sample size, if it applies to a larger population, then possibly around half of the children currently working on the lake are suffering from serious medical problems that require urgent medical attention. However, due to the distance from Lake Volta from nearby health care facilities, the children are often unable to access medical care to treat these problems.53
Lack of Educational Opportunities
Because children working on Lake Volta are fishing nearly all hours of the day, they are not attending school or getting any form of an education.54 If the children are allowed to go to school, they are required to finish all of their work beforehand, and they also have to figure out on their own how to get to school and how to obtain their own supplies.55, 56 In more remote areas, schools are virtually inaccessible, so the children are often denied education altogether.57 All of these factors affect the children’s education in many ways, including attendance, enrollment, and performance.58 Because of the demands of child labor, it always has an effect on a child’s education.59 Additionally, reports have shown that many of the children that did eventually reach their parents had a difficult time adjusting to a formal education as they were enrolled in classes with much younger children due to having missed school while they were on Lake Volta.60 It can be concluded that if an education ever is received after being rescued or released from the lake, it is at the very least stunted.
Practices
International Justice Mission
International Justice Mission (IJM) is an NGO that works with local justice officials, community partners, and other volunteers to help rescue children from child labor trafficking. They work to solve the problem by rescuing and restoring victims, bringing criminals to justice, and working to strengthen the justice system. IJM works to end slavery around the world and they are the main organization responsible for rescuing children from Lake Volta. They support local police in rescue operations and help meet the victims’ urgent needs such as safe housing, food, medical care, counseling and education. To prevent an increase of victims, the organization works to make sure criminals cannot continue to harm vulnerable children. The International Justice Mission works with the local law enforcement in investigating, arresting, and charging the traffickers. The local law enforcement officers are provided with special training, mentoring, and support to help them stop the cycle of violence.61
After the International Justice Mission rescues kids off Lake Volta they are then taken to various children's homes for further care.62 Though IJM has sent out a few annual impact reports, their impact is unclear and not widely publicized. Many of the impact reports published by IJM lack detail and their means of measuring impact could be improved. Additionally, the aftercare provided by IJM is unclear. Though they work to rescue children from slavery, the question then becomes how to best help rehabilitate and reintegrate the children back into society. This is a problem that could be better addressed by IJM.
Ghana Make a Difference
Rescuing the child from the trafficking situation is only half of the battle—once they are rescued, the children must be found a home. Ghana Make a Difference works closely with IJM to provide a home for the rescued children.63 They also provide the children with an education and match the children with a social worker that searches for their biological family. Once the family is found and the social worker has ensured that the home situation is safe, the children are returned to their original home and the social worker continues to provide support to the child and the family to ensure that the child is no longer at risk of being trafficked again. They also teach the children and provide them the necessary tools to help them become self-reliant.64
Since its foundation in 2012, Ghana Make a Difference has successfully reintegrated 122 children with their families, provided over 100 children with an education, and administered needed dental or medical care at a reduced cost to 2,689 people.65 Ghana Make A Difference effectively addresses the consequences that are a direct result of the child’s experience in trafficking. Though Ghana Make a Difference appears to be doing an exceptional job of caring for, rehabilitating, and reintegrating the child into society, they are capped at the number of children they can care for at a time.
Preferred Citation: Wambolt, Cadee. “Child Labor Trafficking in the Volta Region of Ghana.” Ballard Brief. January 2021. www.ballardbrief.org.
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