Challenging Heights, a non-governmental organization that is set to promote youth and family empowerment and children’s’ rights is appealing to faith based organizations and leaders to always dedicate some fraction of their sermon to speak against child trafficking.
According to the organization, this singular act will forbid all members of their congregation from sending any child to Lake Volta, instruct followers to report absent children suspected of being trafficked to the police and teach their congregation about what children face on the Volta Lake.
“Everyday Ghana’s law continues to be flouted, with children callously sold or naively sent away by parents who believe traffickers’ parents promises of an education and secure career. The reality is very different, with long days of hazardous labour, violent abuse, little food and no school. With little chance of escape many children die on the lake,” it said.
At a press briefing in Accra, Challenging Heights noted that traffickers deliberately target poor communities during the long school vacations, paying the family for the labour of a child they may never see again.
It has also established that many enslaved children that are rescued have been shown to come from churches, communities, faith leaders are therefore best placed to reach out to vulnerable families, who are often illiterates and uneducated, and teach them about the reality of condition for children on the Volta Lake.
Challenging Heights also pointed out that there are an estimated 21, 000 children trapped in hazardous labour in the fishing industry on the Lake Volta, and every year more of Ghana’s children are trafficked to a life of modern day slavery.
