Children freed from 'slavery'
2003-10-16 11:45
Cotonou, Benin - Seventy-four child workers as young as four years old _ their skin broken and palms callused from months of hauling granite _ were receiving food, clothes and medical care in the west African state of Benin on Thursday after rescue from the traffickers who sold them into heavy labour.
Nigerian police returned the children to Benin late on Wednesday, ending what Nigerian federal police inspector-general Tafa Balogoun said had been more than a year of work in southern Nigeria's granite industry.
Tiny boys in dirty T-shirts and shorts, or bare-chested, hung out of the windows of the buses that brought them back to their home country, staring solemnly.
Health workers were treating the children on Thursday at a stadium in Cotonou, seaside capital of the port city of Benin.
Washed and dressed
"The children must be washed, dressed and allowed to rest a little before social workers can start interviewing them to find their parents and return them to their families," a Benin official, Latoundji Lauriano, said.
The children were part of at least the second group rescued from labour-traffickers under an August accord between Presidents Mathieu Kerekou of Benin and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.
On September 27, 116 child labourers were returned to Benin after rescue from the southeast Nigeria granite industry.
Child labour and cross-border labour-trafficking are not rare in West Africa - but rescue from it is.
Hauling stones/B>
According to Nigerian police, more than 15 000 children from the impoverished nation of Benin labour in southeastern Nigeria's granite industry, hauling stones.
Poor West African children grow up helping families with grown-up chores. Parents often turn their children over to labour-contractors, seeing it as a way for the boys and girls to feed themselves and learn trades.
The unlucky among the children wind up in places like Nigeria's granite pits, doing hard labour for traffickers who sell the boys' and girls' work cheap and pocket much of the proceeds.
Open wounds on the bodies of the children being treated on Thursday, and the calluses on their hands, testified to the severity of their labour.
Health teams were giving each child new clothes and underwear, feeding them, and innoculating them against diseases.
- AP