Challenging Heights fights child trafficking
Trafficking of children links all countries and regions in a web of international crime. Every year, a number of children are trafficked within countries, particularly from rural to urban areas, while some are smuggled across borders and sold like commodities.
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Trafficking violates the human rights guaranteed to children under international law, most notably, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children’s survival and development are threatened, and their rights to education, health and protection are denied.
Child trafficking is illegal. It is also extremely harmful, as trafficked children are physically and sexually exploited and abused.
One organisation in the country that has focused attention on addressing trafficking of children in parts of the country, where they are forced to work in the fishing industry on the Lake Volta, since its formation in 2007, is the Challenging Heights.
It is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation in Ghana that works to protect children’s rights and end child trafficking in the country. It aims to prevent child trafficking, reduce child slavery and promote children’s rights.
Founded by Mr James Kofi Annan, the organisation works in underserved coastal communities in Ghana, providing support for women and children in hard-to-reach areas that are at risk of child trafficking.
Working on Lake Volta
A report of the organisation’s activities made available to the Daily Graphic indicated that the founder of Challenging Heights was trafficked to work on the Lake Volta when he was six years old and he spent seven years there in modern slavery. He managed to escape, return to his home in Winneba and put himself through school.
It said while working as a bank manager, Mr Annan saved money to start the operation of Challenging Heights with the intent of preventing more children from going through the same ordeal and to rescue the children still working on the Lake Volta.
It started small, with Child Rights Clubs at schools in 2005. By 2007, he had saved something to legally operate Challenging Heights as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and, therefore, quit his job at the bank.
Over the years, the organisation had grown from operating Child Rights Clubs in schools to conducting a number of rescue operations each year and rehabilitating children at its shelter.
Achievements
For instance, in 2016, the organisation rescued 53 children through its operations and helped to reintegrate 62 boys and girls with their families and also cared for 120 at the Challenging Heights Home. It also helped to create and launch the Guidelines for Children's Reintegration, which focus activities and programmes on the organisation’s new strategic goals of ending child trafficking in Ghana's fishing industry in five years and also to end slavery in 10 years.
This is the heart of what the organisation does and how it intends to end child trafficking in Ghana's fishing industry.
The organisation recently conducted an impact assessment of its work in Winneba in the Central Region. The report indicated that more than 70 per cent of respondents mentioned poverty as the reason why people engaged in child trafficking.
The report described last year “as a turning point in the operations of Challenging Heights and for Ghana”.
The organisation is on the path of change and with that it is committing to big goals with a clear plan. It aims at ending child trafficking in Ghana's fishing industry in five years and child slavery in 10 years.
It, however, asked for public support, and help from philanthropic individuals and organisations, to enable it achieve its goal, adding that “let us know how we can work together to end child trafficking.”
Important progress
There has been important progress in the global fight to end child trafficking. An international convention has defined the crime of trafficking and created legal measures to end it; comprehensive legislation has been enacted by countries in both the developed and developing world; multilateral agreements have been implemented to foster greater intercountry and international coordination. Children themselves have spoken about the harm caused by trafficking and the need for protection.
But there is much more to be done to make the elimination of child trafficking a reality.
A handbook produced by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), addresses some of the key measures that parliamentarians can take to end child trafficking.
It outlines specific steps - including laws, policies and advocacy efforts - which parliamentarians around the world are taking to make children safer.
All countries, whether trafficking is taking place through, from, into or within their borders, must enact measures to end this harmful practice.