“I didn’t want them to take me out of school,” Kai* remembers of the day his life changed. He knew his dream of becoming a pilot meant he needed to study.
But his aunt promised to take him to visit his father during the school holidays, and Kai’s mother agreed. Instead, at just 10 years old, Kai was trafficked to a fishing community on Lake Volta in Ghana. Soon, alongside other boys and girls who had also been stolen from their homes, Kai was paddling a canoe and casting nets, his dreams slowly drowning in the icy water.
Since 2015, IJM and government partners have rescued more than 200 children out of exploitation in Ghana’s fishing industry on Lake Volta and have restrained more than 80 traffickers and other criminals.
Three years later, a survivor courageously led police and an IJM team to the remote island where the children were kept. Kai was brave enough to testify against his abusers in court, and generous friends like you helped IJM obtain a conviction so they couldn’t harm any more children.
As a good friend of IJM, you know that the end of modern-day slavery is just the beginning of recovery. A child who has been abused for years can’t just go back to his or her old life. So once again you stepped in. Your support is providing aftercare that’s helping Kai regain his sense of self—and his hopes for the future!
“I have seen this survivor grow from being scared and timid to being outspoken, confident and determined to be the best version of himself,” Kai’s IJM aftercare worker says.
She also wants you to know, “Never stop or doubt your act of giving and support. Because of you, there is a child who goes to school every day with the aspiration to become a pilot. Your support changed a victim into a survivor and now into an advocate for justice.”
State Attorney Dodzi Andrews Adugu is one of many Ghanaian leaders working with IJM to prevent more children from being trafficked across Ghana as Kai was. “We can do more education for transport owners because in trafficking you need to move the child from one place to the other,” he explains. “If ordinary Ghanaians get to understand what trafficking is, they can easily help us get information.”
Ultimately, Mr. Adugu says, his dream is that “Ghana should get to a point where the world will know of us as a beacon in Africa and even the world in dealing with trafficking.”
Together, we can make that dream a reality. Will you make a gift right now to help rescue trafficked children and protect generations to come?
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