Rescued from slavery, Christian wants to be a doctor

At the age of five, life looked gloomy and hopeless for Christian Atsem. He had just lost his father, left behind with two of his sisters, his mother couldn’t feed them, and life became hard, he was sold into slavery.

After serving his master for about five or six years, he was rescued and sent to school, where he is studying science and hopes to become a medical doctor one day.

“We didn’t have enough food to eat, despite help from other family members,” he told a symposium on child trafficking today in Accra.

The symposium was themed;  “Growing up free –  Ending child trafficking in Ghana.”

Christian was sold into slavery to a fisherman. At that age, he had to go fishing in a river and herd cattle, often surviving on little food provided by his new master.

“A man who is a friend of my mother came to tell her, he wanted to help us. He would take us to live with him so we could attend school,” he said.

But the unnamed man didn’t fulfill his promise; instead, he sold the three children to a fisherman in a village near Yeji in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana.

“We didn’t have any specific time for work. We worked at all times, and we didn’t also eat regularly,” he said.

Christian lived in slavery for some five or six years, with uncertainty for the future. “I know some children who died while on fishing expeditions when the rains came,” he told the quiet conference room.

“I was lucky when we went fishing one day and it rained. I was with an adult, so he knew what to do. We tied the canoe and then climbed a tree. But after a while, the canoe capsized. I thought, if I wasn’t with an adult who knew what to do, like the other children, we would have died,” he said.

Christian’s chance to freedom, however, came. He had taken his master’s cattle out to graze one day, and on his return, two of the cattle went missing.

“My master gave me a torch light to go and find the other cattle late in the night. I refused to go and he beat me up very badly. He also denied me food,” Christian said.

“I was lucky when we went fishing one day and it rained. I was with an adult, so he knew what to do. We tied the canoe and then climbed a tree. But after a while, the canoe capsized. I thought, if I wasn’t with an adult who knew what to do, like the other children, we would have died,” he said.

While he was crying outside the house, a visitor to the village saw him and asked what the matter was, he said. After narrating his ordeal, the visitor introduced him to an NGO that was involved in rescuing trafficked children.

The NGO, Right to be Free, rescued him and got him into school.

Now 19 years old, he is in senior secondary school at the Faith Baptist Senior High School where he is studying science. He is the School Prefect and President of the Students’ Representative Council.

There are an estimated 103,300 people in modern slavery in Ghana – about 0.33 per cent of the population – with 85 per cent in forced labour and 15 per cent in forced marriage, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index by the Walk Free Foundation.

The main industries of concern for forced labour in Ghana are farming and fishing, retail sales, manual labour and factory work, according to the Index. It also said an estimated 21,000 children work in fishing along the Volta Lake and its environs.

Information available elsewhere indicates that more than 190,000 people are currently victims of human trafficking in Ghana, and along the Volta Lake alone, more than 49,000 children are engaged in work.

Out of the number 21,000 are forced into hazardous labour that is very dangerous to their lives.

As Ghana was found not to be doing as much as the country should to curb the disturbing phenomena of human trafficking – Ghana is classified as Tier 2 Watch List country on the 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report which includes narratives for 188 countries and territories, including the United States, meaning that the government does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons and failed to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in the past year.

According to US authorities, any country ranked on the Tier 2 Watch List for two consecutive years must be downgraded automatically to Tier 3 in the third year unless it shows sufficient progress to warrant a Tier 2 or Tier 1 ranking. Ghana has been on Tier 2 for two consecutive years.

The US government therefore warned the Ghana government that if it fails to act decisively on human trafficking, the next step would be to withhold all non humanitarian assistance to the country, totalling some $1.5 billion.

The US Ambssador to Ghana, Robert P. Jackson told ghanabusinessnews.com in an interview that there is $500 million from the Millennium Challenge Compact, another $500 million that will be invested by a private company that would manage the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) – that is $1 billion.

“There is some $146 million for health education and agriculture. Additional money for the military, counter-terrorism training, and so on.

In total, next year it will be about $250 million. Not very significant money for a country like Ghana, but enough to make a difference,” he said.

There are an estimated 103,300 people in modern slavery in Ghana – about 0.33 per cent of the population – with 85 per cent in forced labour and 15 per cent in forced marriage, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index by the Walk Free Foundation.

Following the warning, including the possibility of restricting visas to all Ghanaians seeking to travel to the US, the Ghana government seems to have sprung into action on the matter of people trafficking and child labour.

Mrs. Yvonne Obuobisa, the Acting Deputy Public Prosecutor from the Attorney-General’s Department told the symposium that, Ghana was working hard to bring itself to compliance.

She told the gathering that between now and December 31, 2016, “we should expect some significant improvement.”

She however pointed out that the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police was under-resourced.

“There are only eight investigators at the Unit, and they need vehicles,” she said.

She even suggested that vehicles that have been seized and are being held at the Tema Port could be released to the unit to aid its work.

She also admitted that the Attorney-General’s Department has very little to show for prosecuting human trafficking cases.

“The Department is over-burdened. About 60 have left, and we have seen only eight replacements and we can’t assign attorneys to handle specific cases of human trafficking,” she said.

Some of the attorneys, she said also require training to handle human trafficking cases.

Meanwhile, last week, the government announced intensification of efforts to tackle the menace of human trafficking through enhanced awareness raising measures to deepen understanding of the complex issues of trafficking and irregular migration.

The measures according to a GNA report, includes capacity building activities for stakeholders and the public, are expected to improve the detection, investigation and the prosecution of suspected traffickers and smugglers as well as ensure a comprehensive victim protection systems.

The country has also launched the Human Trafficking Prohibition (Protection and Reintegration of Trafficked persons) Regulations, 2015, L.I. 2219.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
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