29 Oct 2006

Africa’s World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old’s Eyes

"Oh, we don't care, they are used to this...", but we should, they are the children who are the future of Africa.

" Just before 5 a.m., with the sky still dark over Lake Volta, Mark Kwadwo was rousted from his spot on the damp dirt floor. It was time for work.

Mark Kwadwo, 6, in the small dark room, where he sleeps on the dirt floor and rises before dawn to work on Lake Volta, a two-day trek from his family home. “I don’t like it here,” he whispered to a visitor, out of earshot of his employer.

Shivering in the predawn chill, he helped paddle a canoe a mile out from shore. For five more hours, as his coworkers yanked up a fishing net, inch by inch, Mark bailed water to keep the canoe from swamping.

He last ate the day before. His broken wooden paddle was so heavy he could barely lift it. But he raptly followed each command from Kwadwo Takyi, the powerfully built 31-year-old in the back of the canoe who freely deals out beatings." Joao Silva for The New York Times.

Link to Africa’s World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old’s Eyes - New York Times

Multimedia presentation about child Labor in Zambia and Ghana, Africa