I was researching child slavery in Ghana and ran across this post, about the Oprah Show that was the genesis for StopChildSlavery.com | Click Here

One of the readers of the post had this comment:

I think this story has been exaggerated. I am from Ghana and I grew up there and there is no such thing as child slavery. The children are not forced to work and they are definitely not treated like slaves, unless they end up with a wicked family. This is just the only way these poor people can earn money for their daily lives. Some of these children even go to school and the school fees are paid by the family they are helping. I don’t know the story of these particular seven children, but I know for sure that what I am saying is what mainly happens. Very rarely do you find children “captured in the chains of slavery.” I personally think that is absolute rubbish. If anything, the issue should be child labour because the children’s families are paid every month (most of the time). It is definitely not as though the child has been sold to a whole new family for the rest of their life. This is a very huge exaggeration.
- Posted by: Anyeley

Here was my response:

Anyeley, if it is a very huge exaggeration, then what do you make of the U.S. State Department of Trafficking report issued in June of 2006 that says…

“Ghana is a source, transit, and destination country for children and women trafficked for forced labor and sexual exploitation. Children are trafficked within the country as domestic servants, cocoa plantation laborers, street vendors, porters, for work in the fishing industry, and for use in sexual exploitation. IOM estimates that the number of trafficked children working in fishing villages along the Volta Lake is in the thousands. Children are also trafficked to and from Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Nigeria, and The Gambia as domestic servants, laborers, and in the fishing industry. Children and women are trafficked for sexual exploitation from Ghana to Europe, from Nigeria through Ghana to Europe, and from Burkina Faso through Ghana to Cote d’Ivoire.” Source: http://www.gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Ghana.htm

Anyeley did not come back to respond. But Anyeley represents the reason why this and other blogs like it are necessary. We MUST wake the world up to the truth about the scope of child slavery in our world. We must not close our eyes!