CHILD SLAVERY
BY: DILSA MONTEIRO
Why do people buy child slaves in West Africa?
To make more money in a business, you offer people the lowest prices on your products. But this means that you will not make a lot of money. So most cocoa farmers would turn to children for workers so that they won't have to pay them. But recently this has turned from have your kids help you work, to buying and selling child slaves to pay for the things the family needs to survive. This has been a big problem because children as young as five years old have been found working over the limit at cocoa farms. And what’s worse? Children are abused, forced to carry heavy loads, barely received any sort of education, exposed to harmful chemicals and have to work up to 14 hours a day. And many more concerning things. All these problems with child slaves has caused many conflicts in west Africa. But how does the situation the children are in at the moment affect them later in life?
child slave working on cocoa farm
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How does being a child slave affect kids later on?
Being a child slave is already bad enough, but how does child slavery affect they later on? Many children in west Africa experience abuse, no or close to no education, and many other problems. This affects them in the future because if they are freed, they will not have the education to run a business or get a good job for a living. Another way child slavery would affect the kids in the future is that they will fear other people and be more shy because of the abuse they received as a child. So with all these problems that affect the children personally what is the government or anybody doing to solve these problems?
what are people doing to end child slavery in West Africa?
The governments of west Africa are well aware of human trafficking of child slaves in in the cocoa industry but many companies are doing things to help end child slavery. Some companies have put an effort to stop child slavery. But some companies keep using child slave cocoa for their products because of how cheap it is. So even though a lot of companies are trying to end child slavery other companies still support it. So what all this means is that even though there is a force to end child slavery it still illegally happening.