18 August 2008
editorial
One of the things Ghanaians and Africans in general consider as a taboo and therefore, hate to hear is slave trade. Through the slave trade, our brothers and sisters were shipped from Ghana and the rest of Africa to the Americas and the new world under dehumanising conditions. These slaves were used to build the economy of the Western countries, particularly the United States of America.
Later, the colonizers themselves realised the harm they were causing to Africa and decided to abolish the trade, which received overwhelming endorsement across the globe at the time. Almost 200 years down the line, this abominable act has raised its ugly head again. This time it is not the white man who is indulging in the slave trade but our own black people.
For the past five years, out media landscape has been awash with reported arrests of people who engage in child trafficking. In most of the cases, parents of these children willingly give them out to these criminals in return for some few cedis. Yeji, in the Brong Ahafo region, Kete Krachi in the Volta region and lately Cote d'Ivoire have gained notoriety as places where child trafficking is prevalent.
Just last week Friday, the Daily Graphic reported that the Western regional command of the police service has rescued 10 school children who were being sent to Cote d'Ivoire. The report states that the children were put in a cargo with poor ventilation. The same paper had few weeks earlier reported the rescue of a large number of children at the Apremdo barrier, who were being sent to Cote d'Ivoire from Niger and other Sahelien countries.
The Chronicle finds this latter day development to be very disturbing and therefore calls on Parliament to enact laws that would impose hefty punishment on those involved in this 17th century activity. If the laws already exist then it is about time that they were vigorously implemented. If we fail to deal with this emerging trend, we would not have the moral justification to condemn the slave trade that was used by our colonizers to ransack the continent. Parents who deliberately sell their children must also be punished severely by the law.
We are aware of the poverty level in the country but there is no way parents can justify the sale of their children into slavery in this modern world because of poverty. Government must put its feet down by stopping this canker. 50 years after gaining independence, Ghana has matured enough to do away with this colonial mentality.
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