Combating Child Trafficking in Benin

"Families that are very well connected do that easily," says Akilou, noting that children sometimes take the surnames of their surrogate households. "It's a binding relationship between families."

It took many years for Akilou Séibou to realize why the tall, expressionless girl, worked tirelessly in their aunt's home in Cotonou, Benin.

Argle*, an extended relative to Akilou, had been sent around the age of 12 to her aunt's care after her mother passed.

Argle's days started as early as 5 a.m. Sometimes, with just four hours of sleep, Argle had to bathe, feed and dress her cousins before she went to school. Her days and nights were filled with cleaning, cooking and yard work. And she was often scolded for trivial matters.

"When I asked her why she did this, she just said 'I don't know. I have to do it and I'm doing it'," recalls Akilou, a fellow with the Congressional Hunger Center. The Benin native spent his fellowship's first year working with CRS Benin, which, through its social education department, works closely with other agencies to combat child trafficking. He is currently posted at CRS headquarters in Baltimore.

Akilou was a college student during the time he would visit his aunt's home for a cooked meal and would engage Argle in conversation. It wasn't until years later, when he was a graduate student researching child labor at Vermont's School for International Training, that Akilou would make the connection to what he had observed in Benin. As Akilou began his research, images of Argle quickly surfaced in his mind and the reality became clear.

Education First

Working in Benin since 1958, CRS has joined the effort to combat child trafficking through programs that locate and provide support to children at risk, reunite victimized children with their families, and provide family support. The agency also helped implement the Education First program, which reenrolls trafficked and at-risk children in school. The initiative established an alternative school in northern Benin so that children who work at home during the day may attend school in the afternoon.

The Education First project is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and implemented by CRS Benin, World Education and Terre des Hommes. Now in its fourth year, the program's goal is to promote education as a greater economic solution and investment than trafficking. "A child who is in the school system is less likely to be trafficked, and educated parents are less likely to traffic their children," Akilou explains.

In April 2006, the government of Benin passed its first anti-trafficking law. Nongovernmental organizations, collaborating with local authorities, did much to help encourage and inform this process.

A Tradition Eroded

The rise in child trafficking is a phenomenon that spurred from the earnest African family tradition of sending children to live in the homes of extended-family members that could better provide for them. The move is sometimes celebrated as a coming-of-age event.

But over the last decade, the cultural practice has degenerated into a more brutal form. In some instances, children are treated as mere commodities. It's a phenomenon that Akilou says transcends ethnic and religious divisions. Among other social factors, trafficking proliferated alongside the decline in the price of cotton, a major export for Benin. This decline has placed additional stress on household incomes.

Children as young as 9 are encouraged to leave their homes, suddenly finding themselves in new environments where a loving family atmosphere is replaced with oppressive work and treatment. These children become vulnerable to exploitation and even sexual abuse.

It is estimated that between 700,000 and 2 million people, principally women and children, are trafficked around the world every year. And the U.S. Department of State revealed that children are trafficked as domestic servants, plantation laborers and street vendors, or for work in commercial enterprises, the handicraft industry and construction.

The returns from their labor may come in the form of a meager monthly payment the child sends home to his family, sometimes through the trafficker, who takes a cut. In other cases, children are sent to work temporarily and return home with money to pay for such needs as food and school fees for their siblings.

While in Benin, Akilou talked to five boys, ranging in age from 12 to 14, who had just returned from work in Nigeria. In exchange for working over an acre a day each for 64 days straight, each boy received school supplies and a bicycle.

"These children were working harder than the adults," says Akilou.

One of the boys told him that they just cried when they returned home and wanted to tell their father, "Think about us first."

Reunited

Thinking back on Argle's circumstance, Akilou says that her situation may have been even more traumatic because she was forced into servitude while she was still grieving the death of her mother.

When Akilou returned to Benin last year, he met Argle again, just by chance. Now in her 30s, Argle happened to be working as a pastry baker at the same training center where Akilou was presenting his research findings to local authorities. When Akilou saw her stoic face again as an adult, he realized the lasting impact of her trauma. "I didn't see the glow of life in her," he explains.

Once united, they embraced. Argle said she thought that she would never see Akilou again. "It took me a long time to recover from what I went through," she told him.

*The name has been changed to protect privacy.