Extreme poverty drives child trafficking trade
Extreme poverty and desperation has meant that children as young as seven are being trafficked in west Africa for cheap labour, according to human rights organisations.
The children such as those on board the Benin ship would be largely destined for a life on agricultural plantations and or as domestic labour.
Mike Dottridge, director of the human rights organisation Anti-Slavery International, said the majority of child slaves are taken from Benin and Togo.
They are usually taken overland illegally across Nigeria, before embarking on dangerous sea canoe trips from southern Nigeria to wealthier countries such as Gabon.
"The canoes sometimes get lost on the journey and where they have water for four days the journey takes four weeks. There have been cases of starvation," he said.
In some cases girls had been forced to work as prostitutes while waiting to be taken from southern Nigeria to Gabon.
He said parents are being tricked into believing that their children have a "brilliant" future with the traffickers - but if they do return home at all, they will be destitute.
Lynn Geldof, spokeswoman for the United Nations children's fund, Unicef, said many parents lose all contact with their children.
Unicef helped set up 215 village committees in Benin in 1997 to advise parents on the dangers of the traffickers. It is estimated that up to 3,000 children have been saved as a result of the committees.
"Parents are given a small sum of money - a tiny sum of money by our standards - and they expect that the children will be able to send remittances home.
"A lot of African states have émigrés who send remittances home and it is a major source of income in some countries," she said.
"The issue here is one of extreme poverty and desperation and no way out where mothers are persuaded to trade their children into work."
