Thousands of boys as young as 5 are forced to work for fishermen on Ghana’s Lake Volta. They work without pay or schooling, far from their families.

Few of their impoverished and often illiterate parents realize what they are doing when they sell their sons’ services to fisherman. Enforcement of child labor laws is rare in the remote villages around the immense lake. Parents believe their sons are learning a trade - but in fact, the boys toil as slaves, getting only a few hours of sleep a night and one or two meals a day.

The boys spend up to 18 hours a day casting fishing nets from canoes. Many drown while untangling nets snagged on the lake bed. Many more are stunted by malnutrition, and contract waterborne diseases that go untreated. Beatings from the fishermen are common.

In addition to rescuing hundreds of boys from forced labor, this Initiative is designed to fuel

prevention efforts to keep other boys from being trapped in the fishing industry, and fight poverty that makes families vulnerable to selling their sons’ services to fishermen.

Initiative Profile »

Many Ghanaian fishermen have twisted a cultural tradition in which parents send their children to live with extended family members or acquaintances for apprenticeship or education. A fisherman pays about $20 year to parents for a boy’s services, ostensibly to teach him a trade. But few parents realize that their child will be casting nets and diving into frigid, parasite-infested waters seven days a week without adequate food, clothes, rest or medical care.

Education in the equivalent of grades one through nine is compulsory in Ghana, but few impoverished parents can afford school fees, books and uniforms. Attendance is not enforced and parents

are rarely sanctioned for keeping children out of school.

Ghanaian law also sets the minimum employment age at 15 and bans anyone younger than 18 from hazardous work such as fishing. These laws are likewise rarely enforced: 29 percent of Ghanaian children ages 7 to 14 work full- or part-time and 36 percent of those working children ages do not attend school, according to World Bank figures.

This Initiative helps local Ghanaian organizations free enslaved boys who would otherwise have little hope of escape or a better future.

Ghana in Focus »

The Initiative’s comprehensive approach addresses the child labor problem around Lake Volta from several key directions. The most effective way to counter human trafficking, including child labor, is to stop it before it starts. Prevention education will reach thousands of people and income-generating activities will help impoverished families boost their household income and reduce their vulnerability to exploitation. Fishermen also will learn about alternative income-generating activities, through vocational training supported by microcredit, so they do not have to depend on child labor.

Advocacy efforts will push hundreds of government and law enforcement officials nationwide to seek out and prosecute criminals who trap boys in the fishing industry.

The Initiative will rescue hundreds of boys in four of Ghana’s 10 regions: Brong-Ahafo, Central, Greater Accra and Volta. Boys will be reunited with their families when appropriate and receive trauma counseling, medical care and remedial education. Rehabilitation efforts set rescued boys on a course to live healthy lives as adults.

Patience Addo, 35, of New Bakpa, Ghana, has six boys and four girls. She says, “Because of poverty I was not able to look after my children and I [had] to give one [boy] to a fisherman. Things continue [to] get worse until [two organizations that will be involved in this Initiative] came to help us and today my children are in school and the assistance given me is helping me to provide basic amenities for my children and they are in good health.” One of the organizations rescued Addo’s boy from the fisherman and the boy is back home and attending school with his siblings.