{"id":33832,"date":"2019-03-02T15:22:33","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T15:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33832"},"modified":"2019-03-02T15:22:33","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T15:22:33","slug":"child-slaves-risk-their-lives-on-ghanas-lake-volta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33832","title":{"rendered":"Child slaves risk their lives on Ghana’s Lake Volta"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Achibra had first encountered the boat with Adam and his master, Samuel, several days earlier. He began speaking with Samuel about using children that are not his, to fish on the lake.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI try to build a rapport with the master,\u201d says Achibra. \u201cBecause he has paid money to the family and he has purposefully brought him here to the lake to work, I can\u2019t take them by force. Anything can happen on the lake.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Two days later and back at the village, negotiations began in earnest under the shade of a thatched roof. At stake, the freedom of six children. First though, Samuel was asked to explain how he came to obtain the children he now enslaves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI normally visit various homes and get these boys to come help,\u201d says Samuel, through an interpreter. \u201cWhat this typically requires is to sit down with the family, with a mother or father or relative, sit down with them and agree on terms before you take the child. If your son stays with me for three years, the family normally requests a cow.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When asked how he feels about putting children in danger to enrich himself, Samuel\u2019s answer is startling:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We all know that working on the lake is very dangerous and anything can happen,\u201d says Samuel. \u201cBut one thing I can say, is in this world, if you don\u2019t set a trap, you can\u2019t catch fish. So in order to live, you have to find a way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Ghana, the minimum age for workers is 15. But that law is rarely enforced. The US State Department<\/a>, in its annual report on human trafficking around the world, spotlighted the problem on Lake Volta when it stated \u201cmore than half of the children working on and around the lake were born in other communities and many of these children are subjected to forced labor; not allowed to attend school; given inadequate housing and clothing; and are controlled by fishermen through intimidation, violence, and limiting access to food.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For its part, the government in Ghana is aware of the problem and working, albeit slowly, to remove children. In 2017, the country hosted its \u201cNational Child Labor Day\u201d in the lakeside town of Kete Krachi, to call awareness to the issue. There is also an effort to register all the boats on the lake, which could make it easier to track down and punish fishermen using child slaves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe haven\u2019t started implementation yet,\u201d says Prince Latif Oyekunle, the Deputy Chief Executive of the Krachi West District. \u201cBut we have discussed it at the executive committee meeting and at some general assembly meetings and a go ahead has been given.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Achibra had first encountered the boat with Adam and his master, Samuel, several days earlier. He began speaking with Samuel about using children that are not his, to fish on the lake. \u201cI try to build a rapport with the master,\u201d says Achibra. \u201cBecause he has paid money to the family and he has purposefully…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}