Village of Life to the rescue of trafficked children
Kofi and Ama (not their real names) are both 17 years of age. They were trafficked at an unknown age.
Advertisement
Kofi was trafficked from Denkyirah in the Central Region after his grandmother whom he lived happily with at Nsuatre in the Brong Ahafo Region died and he had to go and live with his mother.
His mother gave him out to a man under the pretext of taking him to school at Senya Beraku but the man also trafficked him to another man at Yebedaniagya in the Krachi West District in the Volta Region.
There he was made to perform odd jobs as a fishing hand.
He saw other children who performed the same task as he did and he always had to fight for his dear life.
He was not paid for his service, neither was he allowed to go to school with the excuse that his mother had already been paid.
Ama was also trafficked by her maternal aunt under the pretext of taking her to school when her parents divorced at Bakpa in the Volta Region.
She was beaten and molested by her aunty who was a fish monger and male workers.
Other Trending Stories
With little to eat, she had to give in to sexual advances from men at an early age but luck shined on her when in 2009, she was rescued by Partners in Community Development Programme (PACODEP), a non-governmental organisation working in the area of the rescue of trafficked children, and settled at the Village of Life, a home for trafficked children at Kete Krachi in the Volta Region.
Life in the Home
Now Kofi and Ama are in the second year in the junior high school at the Village of Life Academy, a school for the children at the home and children from other settler communities.
According to Kofi and Ama, although their mothers have been there to visit them, no amount of persuasions would make them go back to their parents.
According to Ama, she now understands what it means to be a child as all that she had to do at the home was to keep her bed and her surroundings neat.
“All other things are done for us here so why would I want to go back to my mother where I would be made to suffer,” Ama said.
Today, together with 60 other children, Ama is safe, thanks to the intervention of ‘Village of Life,’ which is a home for trafficked children located in Kete Krachi in the Volta Region, which has become a safe haven for children from various parts of the country.
Trafficked from Ada in the Greater Accra Region, Bakpa in the Volta Region, parts of the Northern, Central and the Western regions, the children, ranging from ages five to 20 have found a place where they can call their home.
Established in 2003, the ‘Village of Life’, which is managed by the Partners in Community Development Programme (PACODEP) a non-governmental organisation with support from other NGOs such as World Vision, provides shelter as well as educational facilities for the children.
Support to Home
During a visit to the home which is attached to the school, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, called on the trafficked children to put the past behind them and rather make conscious efforts to make it in life.
She said the ministry would ensure that they were all registered under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme (LEAP) as they were already on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
She said she would also liaise with the Ministry of Education to help the school to make life easy for the pupils and students.
She presented assorted gifts to the children, as well as bags of rice for the upkeep of the home.
Advertisement
Mr George Achibald Jnr., PACODEP Project Coordinator, said the school, known as Village of Life Academy, admitted other children from nearby communities, to ensure that the trafficked children did not feel neglected or stigmatised.
He said hitherto the school was only for the trafficked children but they were always shunned when they went to the towns and therefore in 2010, it decided to open its doors to the nearby communities.
Currently, he said, the school had over 150 children from nursery to JHS 2.