Customs police intercept 27 children being smuggled to work abroad

Benin customs police said on Thursday they had arrested four traffickers trying to smuggle 27 Beninese and Nigerian children out of the country on a minibus, first to Togo and then on to Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. The traffickers were stopped with the children aged between 6 and 12 at the Hillacondji customs post on the Togo border, 105 km west of the capital Cotonou, a customs policeman told IRIN. "First of all they tried to tell us they were taking the children to a holiday camp in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana," explained Jean N’Tia Bokombo, a police officer at Hillacondji. The four detainees -- two from Benin and two from Nigeria -- all said that the children had come with the consent of their parents, who wanted them to earn a fortune abroad. Police said some of the children had confirmed this account. "Alphonse Vodounon, a ten-year-old from... Benin, told us that one of his father’s nephews had negotiated his departure with his father, promising the boy would find a job as salesman in a big shop in Cote d'Ivoire," N’Tia Bokombo said. He added that the 17 children from Benin would be taken back to their parents, once social services had finished their enquiries, and the 10 Nigerian minors would be handed over to the Nigerian authorities. Child trafficking is widespread in West Africa, with children from poorer countries in the region often moving to the relatively prosperous states like cocoa-producing Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, and oil-producing Nigeria and Gabon. 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. And the problem appears to be especially becoming particularly acute in Benin, where the authorities have recently increased their vigilance. "With the growing traffic in children, we systematically question any individual travelling with children," N’Tia Bokombo told IRIN. Last week, police intercepted eight young Togolese girls who had been smuggled into Benin to work as domestic servants. A female trafficker was arrested and handed over to the Benin division of Interpol, while the children were sent back to the Togolese authorities.