Fishermen back fight against child labour

A 15-month project initiated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other bodies to help hundreds of child labourers in fishing communities in Ghana has received a "fantastic response" from fishermen, according to an IOM official. "Initially we thought there would be resistance from fishermen to release the children, but I think the strategy we took enabled them to understand the project better," IOM Project Coordinator Ernest Taylor told IRIN on Thursday. "We have been creating awareness amongst them, which includes informing them that by using the children they were depriving them of a better future that they could get through education, and also on the rights of the child," he explained. "They did not think there was anything wrong with using children and the parents also did not know how the children were used by the fishermen, but through the education they are getting to understand and are very cooperative," he added. The programme, started in October, is being conducted by the Ghanaianauthorities, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), CatholicRelief Services and a local NGO, Apple. It aims to help return 1,213 children to their families and reintegrate them into their villages. Family reunification would be consolidated through project activities aimed at allowing children to return to school or join vocationaltraining programmes. The poverty which led to the trafficking of the children in the first place is to be addressed by giving the parents access to income-generating micro-credit schemes. Counselling, training and equipment are also being provided to discourage fishermen from employing children. Long hours, no pay The victims - boys between the ages of 5 and 14 years, mostly from Yeji, an area in eastern Ghana’s Brong Ahafo region - have been forced over the years to work in the fishing industry. The traffickers paid the children's destitute families up to 1.5 million cedis (US $180) per boy. A recent study conducted by IOM, local NGOs, ILO and the Ghanaian Ministry of Women and Children Affairs revealed that the children were usually told that they were going to live with relatives who would take care of them and send them to school. However, they ended up working long hours on fishing boats on the nearby Lake Volta, Taylor said. "They start at dawn and work through late afternoon casting and drawingnets,” he said. “They are fed, but never paid. Sometimes the nets get stuck at the bottom of the lake and children have to dive to release them. Many have drowned." IOM quoted one of the children as saying: "They don't give me much food. I eat once a day in the evening and it is gari (cassava meal) with a little soup and no fish." The employers were well aware that it was wrong to employ children, but used them because they were "easier to control and obey orders, however dangerous the work", Taylor said. “Sold or mortgaged by parents” IOM and its partners have been running awareness-raising activitieswhich have gained the support of traditional authorities. In December, the Yeji paramount chief called on all fishermen to release the fishing boys so as not to deprive them of educational or vocational training opportunities offered by the programme. A number of employers subsequently pledged to release 58 fishing boys immediately to IOM and its partners. Taylor said a number of factors in Ghanaian society might explain whychild trafficking was on the increase. For example, he said, parents often gave away their children on request to relatives and friends, whom they expected to take care of them. They often did so without consulting the children who, however, did not "disobey the orders of their parents to go and live with someone they have never seen before”. “This is an age-old practice, which, under present economic circumstances, has degenerated into children being sold or mortgaged by their parents under false pretences," Taylor noted. Many of the parents were very poor and unable to satisfy the basic needs of the children let alone send them to school. Another contributing factor could be the absence of laws against trafficking in persons in Ghana. As a result of such gaps in the country’s legal provisions, child traffickers responsible for the worst forms of labour exploitation went unpunished, Taylor added. ILO estimates that about 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 years worldwide are engaged in various forms of child labour. Some 80 million of them are in Africa.