A story like this (from Ghana, Africa) really chills you to the bone. But it reminds me of something that I once read in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible about how in 1960’s Congo, Africa there are really just two types of people: those who need to be carried and those who can walk on their own. Childhood simply does not exist.
From the New York Times’ story: Africa’s World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Years-Old’s Eyes:
Just before 5 a.m., with the sky still dark over Lake Volta, MarkKwadwo was rousted from his spot on the damp dirt floor. It was timefor work.
Shivering in the predawn chill, he helped paddle a canoe a mile outfrom shore. For five more hours, as his coworkers yanked up a fishingnet, inch by inch, Mark bailed water to keep the canoe from swamping.
Helast ate the day before. His broken wooden paddle was so heavy he couldbarely lift it. But he raptly followed each command from Kwadwo Takyi,the powerfully built 31-year-old in the back of the canoe who freelydeals out beatings.
“I don’t like it here,” he whispered, out of Mr. Takyi’s earshot.
MarkKwadwo is 6 years old. About 30 pounds, dressed in a pair of blue andred underpants and a Little Mermaid T-shirt, he looks more like anoversized toddler than a boat hand. He is too little to understand whyhe has wound up in this fishing village, a two-day trek from his home.
Butthe three older boys who work with him know why. Like Mark, they areindentured servants, leased by their parents to Mr. Takyi for as littleas $20 a year.
Until their servitude ends in three or four years, they are as trappedas the fish in their nets, forced to work up to 14 hours a day, sevendays a week, in a trade that even adult fishermen here call punishingand, at times, dangerous.
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The International Labor Organization, a United Nationsagency, estimates that 1.2 million are sold into servitude every yearin an illicit trade that generates as much as $10 billion annually.Studies show they are most vulnerable in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
As I write this, and listen to my own 5-year-old play a board game with his mother and his little sister, I am forcefully reminded of all that we take for granted in this country of plenty and feel truly helpless in addressing the needs of these brutalized children.
PS