https://bit.ly/3km7Wd8 Full Report on our FB Page Images and Video by @BeautyForFreedom via our #ProjectGhana 2017 Arts and Skills Training Empowerment Initiative. We were able to join the Rescue Team at Challenging Heights, an opportunity to learn more about the root causes of labor trafficking on Lake Volta so that we could better serve the survivors and at-risk youth we work with globally. To see the brutality, the inhumane conditions these children work under…no human being should be treated the way these children are treated. THIS…MUST…END #EndHumanTrafficking #JoinTheFight #ArtHeals #SupportSurvivors Around 20,000 children work on the lake, enslaved by the fishermen they call “master.” Most of the children come to the lake from hundreds of miles away. They are kidnapped, coerced and often sold to human traffickers, sometimes for as little as $20-$50 USD. While slavery may be as old as recorded history, the problem of children being used in the fishing industry on Lake Volta is not. The lake was only created in 1965, when Ghana constructed a hydro-electric dam downstream, using funds from the Word Bank, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The dam now supplies all of Ghana’s electricity, with the surplus sold to neighboring countries. A Common Story Kofi was six years old when a man appeared at his grandmother's house. He owned a fishing boat, he explained. He was looking for boys to come and work on the waters of Lake Volta, to learn the ways of the fishing boats. He promised a good job, a steady wage, enough food, a safe place to sleep. His promises were as empty as his smile. A decision made out of desperation Adwoa gathered fruit and vegetables to sell at the local markets for a few dollars at a time. "I [don't] have the financial means to provide for [my grandchildren] the way I really want, but God gives me the energy to labour to feed them and myself." So when the man, a relative, offered to take three of the children to work on his fishing boat, she was torn. But they would have something to eat and somewhere to sleep, and she would have a little more for the children who remained. She made her decision. She let them go. (at Lake Volta, Ghana) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDjWZ7BjkvB/?igshid=o7aj0cqemh6w