Home > STOP CHILD TRAFFICKING IN WEST AFRICA
Child trafficking is a global human rights tragedy. Over one million children worldwide,
including thousands in West Africa, are recruited from their homes each year by individuals
seeking to exploit their labor.
Extreme poverty, sometimes combined with the death of one or
both parents, makes children highly vulnerable to false promises of education, vocational
training or paid work. Human Rights Watch’s April 2003 report "Borderline Slavery: Child
Trafficking in Togo" highlights Togo as a case study of trafficking in the region. The report
documents how children as young as three years old are exploited as domestic and agricultural
workers in several countries.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Contact your elected representatives, your countries’ embassies, and Togo’s president and
Minister of Public Health, Promotion of Women and Child Protection, and international lending
agencies; urge them to condemn, monitor, and prevent all forms of child trafficking. Call on
them to increase aid to programs targeted at abolishing child trafficking and protecting
trafficked children.
Visit http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/togo/
Read "Borderline Slavery: Child Trafficking in Togo" at: http://hrw.org/reports/2003/togo0403
SOURCE: Human Rights Watch