Labor Day. A day to celebrate the fact that in our country there are laws that protect children from being exploited. It's very sobering to learn about many sad situations for children all over the world. Especially now that I'm a mom.
In the Lake Volta region of Ghana, forced labor is the daily reality for kids who
have been trafficked into the fishing industry. Great poverty leaves many mothers with a difficult choice: sell their children to someone who can take better care of them or
watch them starve to death. Most of the mothers are told their children will be
given food, housing, and an education. Instead, the kids are often taken to
Lake Volta where they become child slaves and their mothers never see them
again.
Here's some good news: an organization called Mercy Project is
working to break the cycles of trafficking around Lake Volta by providing
alternate, more efficient, sustainable, fishing methods for villagers –
ultimately eliminating the need for child slaves. Because of the work Mercy Project is doing in
Ghana, the first group of children will be freed this month from Lake Volta. Mercy project is hoping to spread this great news via bloggers sharing their ten minute documentary.
The video opens with the phrase, "One of the few universal truths is that children should be happy." Everyone knows this. That's what makes a child a child. Laughter, giggles, grins, delight. There are two little boys shown working in a boat, they can't be older than six years old. Their tiny hands are holding onto oars and their eyes are wide with fear. I can just picture children I've nannied or worked with in classrooms that age. But I can't imagine them working
14 hours a day, 7 days a week, doing hard, physical labor, eating one meal a day, and then falling asleep at night
on a dirt floor filled with other slave children. But this isn't a sob-story video, it's about the positive changes that are already taking place and that will continue on into the future.
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