US Association for International Migration

Overview

USAIM supports the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Project Trafficked Children of Ghana. This program is fighting to help hundreds of children forcibly taken from their families to work in the fishing villages along Lake Volta in Ghana. Your donations can help reunite them with their families, send them to school, and keep them from once again being caught up in this terrifying net of forced child labor.

Trafficked Children in Ghana Project

For the past three years, IOM has rescued hundreds of children. The children were forced to engage in fishing under life-threatening conditions along Lake Volta at Yeji in the Brong Ahafo and Northern Regions of Ghana. This project brought the children back to their families and enrolled them in schools or apprenticeships in their home communities. The process continues by delivering comprehensive rehabilitation, reintegration, and follow-up assistance to these traumatized children.

This project seeks to protect the children from being once again caught up in the net of forced labour. The Project will provide continuous support to rehabilitate, reintegrate, and monitor them for at least one year following their rescue and return to their home communities.

Fishing children draw nets on the shores of
Lake Volta, Ghana

IOM 2007 Eric Peasah

What your donation supports:

Provide continuous medical assistance and psycho-social counseling to each sponsored child
Establish and expand extracurricular activities designed to further each child’s education and further reintegrate the child into the community
Assign a local mentor/tutor to each child to provide encouragement and support
Engage children in recreational activities by involving the children in sports and cultural events in their home communities
Monitor and evaluate the progress made by the children in order to provide follow-up assistance

We need your help. Please help protect these children from being caught in the terrifying net of forced labor.

IOM staff in Ghana recently came across a young boy of 9. His name is Gabriel, but his friends call him ‘Macho’ because he has been able to free himself several times from underwater fishing nets before drowning. Your donations, coupled with funding from the US Government, have freed to date 612 other boys and girls from this nightmare.

Please continue to support this project and help rescue and rehabilitate these children, reunite them with their families, and keep them from being re-trafficked.

Kwadzo's Story

Kwadzo shivering in a fishing boat on the lake
Photo by Claire Dillon, 2008

Among the trafficked children rescued this January is 12 year old Kwadzo who hails from Dogo, a small community near Apam in the Central Region. Kwadzo had been working in the fishing industry for five years. When he was seven years old, Kwadzo’s father took him to Abidjan in Cote D’Ivoire, where he was given to a fisherman to work for a period of two years. According to Kwadzo, during his stay in Abidjan he went fishing for long hours, ate only once a day, and was often mistreated. After more than two years, his father brought him back to Dogo. Kwadzo’s grandmother pleaded with the father to send the boy to school but instead he took him to Kete-Krachi where he was handed over to a fisherman on Lake Volta.

Kwadzo told IOM that his life in Kete-Krachi was even more difficult than in Abidjan because he often had to dive to the bottom of the lake to disentangle nets that were caught on tree stumps, a dangerous chore that he was not required to do in Abidjan.

Kwadzo, was not on the list of children to be rescued this year, but on 20 January, while on the lake around 5:30am, IOM staff saw a fisherman working with a boy. The boy was diving in and out of the water and shivering from the cold. The IOM staff approached the fisherman and attempted to negotiate Kwadzo’s release, but the fisherman refused. IOM reported the incident to the Chief of the village, who has received awareness training and is an advocate of the IOM project. The father and the fisherman begrudgingly released him the next day.

Kwadzo will be sent to live with his mother and will have the opportunity to go to school. He says he is very happy IOM came to his rescue; and he wants to go to school so he can become either a driver or a football player.

U.S. tax deductible donations may be made by check or money order payable to: U.S. Association for International Migration (USAIM); the 501 (c) 3 partner of IOM in the United States or to donate online through USAIM online for the Ghana program click the "Network for Good" link above.