Olaolu Olusina
15 January 2008
analysis
Lagos — For millions of children under various forms of modern day slavery, life, definitely, could have been better if there was a genuine determination to end the menace.
Olaolu Olusina writes that from Ekori in South-south, Nigeria to the coast of Yeji on the Volta Lake in Ghana, trafficked children are suffering the same fate
An unusual scene played out at the Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Nigeria some years ago. A young boy caused a stir when he refused to board an aircraft heading for London. Poor soul! He had never come close to an aircraft, not to talk of boarding one. His blunt refusal aroused the curiosity of immigration officials who were watching the drama. They eventually discovered that the "village boy" was a victim of child trafficking. He was promptly rescued from his abductors and taken back to his village in South-east Nigeria.
Shinny, as he is called, is 12 but slaves under the tropical sun in one of the pig farms scattered around the villages off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in South-west Nigeria. When this reporter sought to know where he came from, a dry smile was what he could offer. Upon further inquiries, however, he said in pidgin English: "I come from Akwa Ibom." Not satisfied with his defensive tactics, a further probe immediately gave him out. "I be from Calabar...," he said as he tried to parry further questions about his family background with the stuff one hears everyday from such kids.
In Ekori, a rural community in Yakurr local government area of Cross River State in South-south, Nigeria, this reporter was faced with the stark realities of child trafficking. A once vibrant farming community is being depleted daily by the activities of modern day slave merchants and their collaborators. A generation of youths; the community's strength and future, now faces the threat of going into extinction. Ekori is believed to be the headquarters of a thriving trade in kid slaves and a hotbed for child trafficking.
Ofem Ubangha is from Ekori. He told this reporter that returnee slave kids usually return from the cocoa farms in South-west Nigeria about mid-December. "They always return from Ondo as from December 15, and the villagers welcome them with thundering shouts of Ondo-he! Ondo-he! Ondo-he! (meaning Ondo people have come) as trucks conveying them enter the village in droves," he said.
It was gathered that from December 10, every year, few of these kid slaves that have finished their contracts, or have been released by their masters, start returning home in trucks, with the attendant dangers to their lives while on transit. "Onward movement takes place in January and between January 3 and 10 of a particular year, about 30 trailers conveyed these children from Ekori to destinations in Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ekiti and Lagos States. Few of them are also ferried into neighbouring countries such as Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea to work in plantations and farms," said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It will recalled that few years ago, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) carried the story of one Felicia, an African (Nigerian) girl who was abducted into slave labour. She was being ferried from London to Italy when she smartly escaped from her abductors at the Heathrow Airport by disappearing into the toilet where she later asked for help. If Felicia was lucky to have escaped unhurt, 'Boy Adam' was not in any way.
His story should still be fresh in the memory of those that followed the case. When his remains were found dumped in River Thames in the United Kingdom. The London Metropolitan Police that investigated the murder discovered, through a forensic report, that he was a victim of child trafficking and that his murder had some ritual dimensions moreso as his head was severed and taken away before his remains were dumped into the river. Further tests carried on his remains led the Metropolitan Police to Benin City as the boy is believed to have come from Edo State in Nigeria.
Human trafficking, no doubt, has become the current social issue of the time. The startling revelation of the frightening dimension the menace is assuming makes it even more worrisome. And just like HIV/AIDS, it crosses local, national and international borders. Every year, some 600-800 million modern day slaves are trafficked internationally. Human trafficking, according to the United States' Department of State, is the third most lucrative business in the world, after drugs and trading of arms, with an estimated annual earning of $5-$7billion. The United Nations also estimates that about 706,000 to four million women and children are trafficked every year. Out of this figure, 50 per cent are children, with some as young as six years.
Vision Media, an American organisation, reports that poverty is the factor in the global economy that leads to suffering. "Those toiling under the horrendous conditions of abject slavery cannot be viewed simply as victims of unfortunate circumstances in the melee of world trade and commerce," says Bill Butler, writer for Vision Media. "Modern day slavery must be acknowledged for the social issue it is; the result of a crime perpetrated by cruel and greedy individuals and criminal enterprises lacking in compassion for other people's suffering."
It was therefore not a surprise as this reporter watched in awe as Emelia Oguuah, filled with compassion, almost burst into tears on a live discussion programme on a Ghanaian television station recently. A mother, of course, with the milk of human kindness flowing in her, the Deputy Director, African Centre for Human Development, a non-governmental organisation (NGO),could not hold back her emotions as she narrated the ordeals that young boys and girls, victims of child trafficking and forced labour, go through on a daily basis.
"Imagine an eight year old boy rearing about 150 cattle! He gets bitten by snakes, have dementia, his growth is stunted and retarded, he suffers all forms of deprivation," she said. "The Kayayes (female porters) at Tudu and Tema stations are sexually abused on a daily basis in order to get protection." Oguuah said that in such situation, "generations of children are born on the streets, raised on the streets and are going to die on the streets," adding, "we are building wasted generations."
Eric Appiah Okrah who works with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as the coordinator for the international programme on Eradication of Child Labour IPEC) in Ghana also painted a gloomy and more frightening picture of the menace. Speaking on the same programme as Oquuah, Okrah disclosed that in Kokrobite, a settlement on the outskirts of Accra, a kid slave said he knew that some of them (kid slaves) were actually used for rituals. According to Okrah, a Togolese trafficker arrested in Ghana, in fact, confessed that his first victim, a young boy obtained from Ghana, was used for ritual by his father back in Togo.
The ILO official said when about 100 slave children working with fishermen on the coast of Yeji on the Volta Lake were rescued by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in September 2003, and returned to their families, "it was discovered that these kids, as young as three-and-a-half years were being used as baits to catch fish by the slave masters who deliberately drown them on the river."
The case on the Volta Lake is pathetic; it is indeed one that has continued to generate the attention of the international community. And quite in line with trends in modern day slavery, where traffickers seek vulnerability in their intended victims, they also seek environments in which they can exploit victims with minimal threat of the victims' escape or law enforcement action. On the Volta Lake, quite a number of children find themselves confined and work under terrible conditions with no means of escape or help as the case may be.
Many of the unfortunate kids are subjected to beatings, deprived of food and water, and enough sleep. They are exposed to highly unsanitary conditions and infectious diseases as they are forced to perform life-threatening work in unsafe conditions without pay. One can then understand the emotional outburst of Oguuah and Okrah as they made a passionate case for the protection of the rights of the Ghanaian child.
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