Saving Children Sold Into Slavery in Ghana

After rescuing a total of 20 victims of trafficking from the Volta Lake in the Volta Region at the end of May 2015, the victims have almost reached the end of their three and a half months of rehabilitation at the Child Protection Center. 

During this rehabilitation period, the field coordinator has been undertaking various field trips to trace the families of the 20 rescued children, who are made up of 19 boys and 1 girl. IOM strongly believes in upholding the fundamental right of children to grow up in a family environment and will make every effort to reunite the children with parents or family members, as long as they are deemed capable of looking after the children in a responsible manner.

These tracing activities have not been without challenges relating to bad roads, relocation of families, wrong addresses, bad weather, etc. Out of the 20 children, the families of 18 have been successfully traced and the children will be reunited by the beginning of the next academic year, so that they can start attending school in their home communities. The families of the remaining 2 are still being traced. If the need arises, IOM will work with Social Welfare to find foster parents. Once the family has been identified, the field coordinator counsels the family on their responsibilities towards their children. Before being reunited with their children, the parents will sign a social contract including a commitment not to re-engage in trafficking. 

Thanks to the generous support from donors like you, the 20 rescued children have now almost completed a happy and comfortable rehabilitation period, and will soon be reunited with their families who have been successfully identified.

The team continuously looks forward to more support from kind donors like you to enable these victims to benefit from a minimum of two and a half years of reintegration and monitoring to support the children’s development and give them the best chance in life.