Police rescue Togolese girls smuggled in to work as servants

Police in Benin said on Friday they had rescued eight young Togolese girls, who had been trafficked into the country to work as domestic servants. The girls, aged between eight and 12 were presented at a press conference. They said they came from Vogan district, 150 km northeast of Togolese capital Lome and their parents had entrusted them to Solande Noumakpo, a Togolese woman, who said she would find them summer jobs as domestic servants in the Beninese economic capital Cotonou. “Our parents sent us to serve in Beninese households until mid- September”, Chantal Dovi, one of the girls, told reporters. “That would allow us to earn some money to pay for next year’s school fees and books,” she added. In Cotonou girl servants can expect to earn 10,000 CFA (US$20) per month, twice what they would earn in their own country. Police inspector Antoine Lawson said Noumakpo had been arrested and handed over to the Beninese section of Interpol, while the children would be sent back to the Togolese authorities. Child trafficking is widespread in West Africa, with children from poorer countries in the region often moving to the relatively prosperous states such as Cote d’Ivoire, the world's largest cocoa producer, and oil-producing Nigeria and Gabon. Child traffickers often take children with the consent of their parents who are given money, gifts or promises that their son or daughter will be given a job or taught a trade. However, Benin is perceived to have an especially acute problem. Child trafficking in Benin hit the headlines in 2001 with the case of the Etireno, a Nigerian-registered vessel that left the port of Cotonou, carrying dozens of young boys and girls, destined to work in Central African countries. The ship was denied entry to several ports and eventually returned to Cotonou. Child welfare organisations believe several thousand Beninese children have been acquired from poor families or seized by force to work in near slave conditions in neighbouring Nigeria. In September and October 2003, the Nigerian authorities returned 190 Beninese children who had been smuggled into the country to work as slave labour, breaking stones at quarries. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), some 200,000 minors have been drawn into the illegal trade that spans West and Central Africa.