Just think if you
were taken from your family and trapped in a world of brutality and couldn’t
escape. This is sadly what many boys encounter in Ghana today many slave owners
in Ghana enslave young children on fishing boats. The children are forced to
untangle nets below the boats and have to fish long hours through day and
night. Many of the children get caught in nets or in the rough water and drown.
The three main points in my essay is the slavery, the organization IJM, and the
solution of having the boys free.
One of my main
points in my project is the problem which is slavery. Slavery is when you use
lies and violence to force another person to work for little or no pay. This is
what is happening in Ghana to boys as young as four. Nearly 50,000 children
work in the country’s fishing industry, with tens of thousands on Lake Volta
during peak season. Nearly 60 percent of these children working on Lake Volta
had most likely been sold into slavery. Boys who would have been in
Kindergarten were instead working long hard 12-plus hours a day and seven days
a week. The boys start working at 3:00 AM to pull heavy nets they set the day
before. The fish come out when the hot sun rises, and the boys take the morning
catch onto shore before noon. The
condition they are in is brutal IJM saw children with “distended stomachs scars
from beating and physical abuse, skin diseases, hair falling out, and open
sores and wounds”. Usually, their legs
are covered in thick scars from motor accidents and dangerous fish, and their
hand calloused from pulling ropes and mending the nets. They also are regularly
beaten and made to do back-breaking labor, including carrying hundreds of
pounds of fish and swimming the depth of the lake to untangle nets. The slave
owners work them tirelessly without food. The violence they face is constant,
but not uncommon. According to Global Slavery Index, nearly 30 million people
are trapped as slaves around the world that is one out of every four forced
laborers are a child.
Another main point
in my project is the organization that frees the boys out of slavery. The IJM
which stands for Internal Justice Mission partners with those working in Local
Justice system to help victims of violence. They do this in four steps According
to the IJM, the first step is Rescue they first identify children and adult who
are victims of violence or forced labor, rape, or sex trafficking. They then
support local law enforcement to go in and rescue the people and ensure that
the victim is treated with dignity. The second step is Restore they create a
treatment plan to help meet the survivor’s specific needs. They partner with
local aftercare homes in case it is long term. They make sure the survivor’s
medical needs are met, provide trauma counseling, and support access to school.
The third step is Restrain they ensure that the criminals cannot continue to
harm the victims by supporting the police in locating, arresting, and charging
them with crimes. The final step is Represent is when they help the survivor
prepare to share the truth in court, and ensure that prosecutors have the
resources they need for a fair trial that brings the perpetrator to justice.
My last main point is the solution in my
project. The solution is the boys are getting rescued from Lake Volta and being
free of slavery. They are being taken into temporary shelters. The IJM social
workers have helped the children settle into a long-term aftercare home where
they will get ongoing care and have a chance to go to school. The goal is to
eventually have the boys reunite with their families. It will take time because
of trauma-focused counseling. But already the signs of freedom are remarkable.
In conclusion, to help get these boys get
out of slavery, I will be raising money and I am going to donate it to IJM
organization. I hope this essay impacts you to take action and help raise awareness
and get these boys get out of slavery. The boys feel trapped in a world of
brutality and feel like they can’t escape helping me help them to escape.
