Druscilla Lartey & Charles Metho
7 April 2004
analysis
When nine-year-old Philip Otoo was asked by his parents to travel with his sister to Akosombo with the promise of going to school and bettering his life, little did he know that he was going work as a slave.
Now 20-years-old and living with his parents at Kokrobite,y a suburb of Accra, Philip recalls the bitter experiences he had to go through at the hands of his sister's husband who forced him to work as a child fisherman. " I was very young then and I didn't know what was happening" he said.
Thousands of other children are abducted, sold, or coerced into exploitative work in Ghana. The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) hopes to introduce a new draft of a Human Trafficking Bill into Parliament within the year.
Eric Appiah Okrah, National Coordinator On Child Trafficking at IPEC, said that the types of child labour that the bill will address include: fishing, working in chop bars, street traders (selling chips, ice water, and ice cream), domestic work, prostitution, begging, working in mines, and working in the cocoa industry. "The children come from impoverished areas to where there is economic activity. The routes are mostly from the rural to the urban areas. Most of them come from the northern, central, and Greater Accra region" Okrah said.
Philip's parents agreed to send him to live with his sister Mary Otoo and her husband in Akosombo with the promise that he would be attending school.
Instead, Philip said he was forced for eight years, first as a houseboy and then as a fisherman. He was joined by two of his brothers, and they worked together with four other children.
His sister's husband became angry and physically abused him and the other children when they came home without any catch, Philip said. They were also refused any meals for the rest of the day.
"Because of this treatment, we sometimes slept on the shores until the following day. There were certain times when we didn't come home for days," Philip said.
When the fishing nets were torn, Philip said that his employer never mended them but forced them to go fishing with the torn nets. "It is very difficult to go fishing with a torn net because when it gets stuck under the sea, you have to dive deeper into the water to remove it".
The work was very dangerous, and Philip said he witnessed other children die as result of diving deep into the sea to remove stuck nets. There are more than 1000 children working as slave laborers on fishing boats across the country, according to a memo issued by IPEC. Okrah said that people who use child labor prefer very young children.
"The younger, the better. When the children are young, they are very vulnerable and willing to take anything. The employer is able to manipulate the child. The older they get, the more they start asserting themselves, and it becomes more difficult to exploit them," he explained.
Philip worked for eight years on the sea without going to school and was offered only two meals a day by his employer. He was neglected when he became ill and was never paid. His parents came to visit him when they heard that other people's children being used as child fishermen had died.
He said when his parents saw that he was not going to school and was being forced to work under inhumane conditions, they decided to bring he and his other two brothers back home. "My employer refused our release. He told our parents he hadn't gathered enough money for our release and that they should come back in three months time".
When his parents came back again the second time, they were given the same excuse.
Philip's parents persisted and eventually brought them back to Accra.
Eric Appiah Okrah noted that there have been several attempts to stop child labour. The International Labour Organization (ILO) passed a convention on the Abolition of Child labour in Industry and then called for a bill on against human trafficking, he said. "Although the draft came last year, it has been something that IPEC has been calling for since 1999," Okrah said.
In 1999 there was a meeting held in Ghana by ECOWAS countries, which lead to ECOWAS adopting a child trafficking protocol, Okrah said. "The ILO convention 182 identifies child trafficking as the worst form of child labour and its mandate was to combat it".
With funding from the United States Department of Labour, the ILO established projects in nine countries in West and Central Africa to combat the trafficking of Children for labour exploitation, Okrah said.
In Ghana the first programme was launched in March 2002. "Since then our focus has been on trafficking and public awareness, to build the capacity of government and NGOs to deal with the issue through workshops and action programs," Okrah said.
There is currently no specific law against child trafficking. Ghana has yet to ratify the UN protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children. "One area we found lacking was legislation, so we decided to organize a workshop on that. Government also saw the need for passing a law. It is something we've been calling for a long time." Okrah said.
In addition to child slavery in the fishing industry, there are many other areas where children are exploited.
"If you take the mining industry, some of the holes are very deep, so they lower the child down in a bucket," Okrah said. In addition to physically dangerous work, the children are subjected to mistreatment, abuse, malnourishment, and neglect, Okrah said.
"In domestic work, maid servants work with little food, little medical care, and are made to sleep on the floor. Sometimes the boys in the house, or the master himself rape them. In prostitution, aside from the medical consequences, some of the girls become addicted to drugs. We have begging, and they use young children because this brings a lot of sympathy," he said.
At a National Stakeholders Workshop to discuss the draft of the Human Trafficking Bill, held on April 1st and 2nd in Accra, Mrs. Elizabeth Hagen, head of the Child Labor Unit at the Labor Department said, "We are hoping that this workshop, and the inter-agency objective discussion, will result in a final draft that will go to Parliament and be drafted into law." Mr. Eric Okrah was also in attendance. "We are trying to build the capacity of the government. You cannot prosecute a person with a law that doesn't exist." According to Okrah, the bill will foremost make human trafficking a criminal offense. In addition, it will establish an interagency body or task force to coordinate activities dealing with trafficking.
Finally, the bill calls for a rehabilitation and reintegration fund to be established to provide compensation for parents if a child dies, Okrah said.
What remains to be done before the bill is passed? "Currently there is no opposition. What we are not very clear about is who is going to be responsible.
There are certain functions that need to be performed, and we want to get all the parties to work together and draw lines of responsibility," Okrah said.
"The question is, how do you bring them under one umbrella without duplication and bribery?"
Kojo Amoakwa, Chief Director of the Ministry of Manpower Development and Employment, believes that the Department of Social Welfare, under the Ministry of Manpower Development and Employment, is ideally suited for the job. "At the workshop it was decided that the ownership of the bill should go to the Department of Social Welfare," Amoakwa said.
"The stakeholder's workshop rightly saw that the Ministry of Women and Children doesn't have the necessary departments under it. The department of Social Welfare is in all 110 districts, so there is one in every district to take care of children," he said.
According to the IPEC Human Trafficking Bill Memorandum, "Temporary care is given to the Department of Social Welfare, which as a decentralized department, is represented in each of the 110 districts nationwide." The memorandum goes on to state "the Department of Social Welfare and the National Vocational Training Institute are to provide victims with employable skills."
Finally, the management of the Trafficking Rehabilitation Fund is under the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs, "towards health needs, skills training, family tracing and other matters connected with the rehabilitation of victims," the memorandum states.
But according to Mr. Amoakwa, the matter of coordination between ministries has yet to be finalized. "The Ministry of women and children is vehemently opposed to our owning the bill." He asserted. The chronicle asked again, when will the bureaucracy be untangled and the bill be passed? "That is a good question, we are hoping that it will come before Parliament this year," Amoakwa said.
Philip Otoo began his primary education at the age of 17 years. He attended a local school for a year before he was enrolled into Kokrobite District Assembly School as a class three pupil. He is now in form one.
Recounting his first experience in school, Philip said, "It was very difficult adjusting with the kids in my class because I was the oldest amongst them. When I didn't understand something and I asked them, they laughed at me".
This experience did not deter Philip from pursuing an education. He has been encouraged by his teachers "not to give up".
Philip's class six teacher, Juliet Nkansah, affirms that "she is hopeful Philip can make it although he looks old amongst the younger kids and would not readily mingle with them".
Philip wants to become a doctor in the future. "I am very good at working mathematics," he said. Philip's mother Naomi said she deeply regrets her actions and will do what it takes to help her sons become successful.
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