|
CHILD SLAVERY IN AFRICA
by Levi Anthony
"I work in a
house that has five family members. I’m the only servant. I’m very busy all
day working, washing, cleaning and preparing food. The children in the family
go to school, but I don’t get to go. They can also watch television, but I’m
not allowed. I’m not allowed to play with the children. I’m always working. I
sleep on the floor in the dining room. I’ve never been home to visit since
beginning this work. My parents came to visit me twice, and collected some
money from the family, but I don’t know how much."
Salani Radnayaka, a
ten-year-old girl working as a live-in domestic servant for a family in
Colombo, Sri Lanka. (source: Human rights Watch).
 By conservative estimates, there
are about 27 million people today working under various forms of slavery.
According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), over 200,000 children
work as slaves in West and Central Africa. Boys are usually sold to work on
cotton and cocoa plantations while girls are used as domestic servants and
prostitutes.
In some cases, children are kidnapped outright and sold into slavery while in
others, families sell their children, mostly girls, for as little as $14.
A thriving trade in human
traffic has developed in many parts of Africa mainly because of the grinding
poverty in which many Africans live. Oftentimes, slave traffickers fool
parents into selling their children, telling them that they are being sent
away to get a good education. In the end, these children are sold across
Africa and as far away as Europe. The countries from which children are
smuggled include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast,
Mali, and Nigeria.
Many of us in the United States
were shocked recently when we learned from news reports that our favorite
chocolate bar might have been made with child labor. US chocolate
manufacturers purchased most of their cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast - the
world's largest producer of cocoa beans and where child labor on plantations
is prevalent.
Even though child slavery is
illegal in the Ivory Coast, the government said the practice continues because
the foreign multi-national corporations (such as Hershey's) do not pay enough
for the cocoa beans thus forcing farmers to use child labor. It is believed
that over 15,000 children work in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast. Many
are imprisoned and beaten if they try to escape.
Because of the bad publicity,
the chocolate manufacturers, human rights organization, and the government of
the Ivory Coast recently signed an agreement to work toward ending child
slavery in the chocolate industry.
June 11, 2002 |
|
