Ghana celebrates 55 years of independence today. As the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve autonomy from European Colonialism, it has much to take pride in. To most Ghanaians, this day symbolizes freedom. 

Ghana may be politically free, but not everyone can rejoice today. Like in most countries around the world, slavery still exists in Ghana. As tourists visit the castles and dungeons of Cape Coast to hear the horror stories of the ancient slave trade, many Ghanaians remain enslaved. The practice survives in many forms: child trafficking in fishing and domestic servitude, debt bondage in gold mining, child labor in cocoa farming, and sex trafficking and forced prostitution. 

But Ghanaians do not sit idly by as these terrible acts occur.  Free The Slaves supports grassroots efforts to end slavery in the country. 

FTS partner Challenging Heights, headed up by Freedom Award winner and survivor James Kofi Annan, works with communities to identify and carry out daring rescues of children in fishing slavery along Lake Volta, supports them as they recover, and reunites them with their families.

Two FTS partners, Social Support Foundation and the Network for Community Planning and Development, are hard at work in informal mining communities helping small-scale miners gain access to land and legal licenses so that they can lift themselves out of debt bondage. Alongside this work, FTS is undertaking groundbreaking research on violence against children within small-scale mining communities.

 Twenty-five organizations comprise the nascent but strong Ghana Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Coalition, which is currently leading efforts to raise awareness and carry out interventions against sex trafficking.

 Today we salute you, Ghana, for starting a wave of political and economic liberation in Africa. We also salute you in your efforts to end modern-day slavery, and we await the day we can all celebrate the eradication of slavery in Ghana, Africa and beyond.

A terrific opportunity has come from our friends at the Global Fund for Children. To help raise awareness about modern slavery, and to help child slavery survivors, the fund will donate one book to the Challenging Heights rescue shelter for every book that you buyby December 24. Challenging Heights was founded by former slave James Kofi Annan, recipient of a Free the Slaves Freedom Award for his courageous work to rescue children trapped on dangerous fishing boats in remote Ghana. His shelter helps kids regain their dignity and playful nature—as well as catch up on their class work. His school educates hundreds of kids, providing them with options in life that make them less vulnerable to slavery. The Global Fund will send up to 500 books to Challenging Heights. It’s a two-for-one offer that will mean a lot for vulnerable kids in Ghana.

Editor’s note: Free the Slaves College Coordinator Laura Murphy recently visited FTS programs in Ghana. This is the first of her four-part blog on her reflections. To learn more about how you can start a Free the Slaves chapter at your school, you can contact Laura at laura.murphy@freetheslaves.net

Last month, on June 13, Ghana celebrated the World Day against Child Labor by unveiling their new National Plan of Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor in Ghana. Representatives from the ILO, UNICEF, the US Embassy, Free the Slaves, and our partner Challenging Heights gathered along with over 400 people, including Ghanaian school children, to celebrate Ghana’s increased commitment to end the most hazardous forms of child labor by 2015.

The highlight of the event was a speech given by Dominic Impraim, a twelve year old student at Challenging Heights School who aspires to be a musician. His dream was almost lost after spending nine years in slavery on Ghana’s Volta Lake. He shyly spoke, in his native Fante language, of the horrors of his life as a child slave. He admitted that he was shocked when he learned through taunting by the slaveholder that his family had sent him to work in the fishing town of Yeji in exchange for only GHC5.00 (the equivalent of about $3.30). Living nine hours away from home and family, young Dominic was forced to work all day and all night and rarely allowed to sleep. The crowd gasped when he recounted how he was physically and verbally abused each day and especially harshly when he asked for food.  He recalled instances when he was deprived of food for more than two days though he was forced to “work as usual” on Ghana’s Volta Lake.

But Dominic is an example of the success Ghana is having in changing the lives of child slaves. Dominic was rescued only one year ago by Challenging Heights, a major contributor to the National Plan of Action. Just after his rescue, Dominic was provided with rehabilitation services and reunited with his family. Because his mother is mentally challenged, he is currently under the care of his grandmother. His grandmother was provided with microfinance by Challenging Heights to expand her “kenkey” and farming business and she  is now enrolled in a community microcredit group that will prevent her from sending Dominic back to work. Dominic is in school for the first time and excelling in his studies with full support from Challenging Heights for his school fees, uniforms, books, and writing materials. He credits Challenging Heights for the massive change in his life and the potential he is just now discovering in himself.

Kofi Awoonor, celebrated Ghanaian novelist and professor, remarked in his brief keynote address that, in fact, Dominic had said everything that needed to be said. It is stories like Dominic’s that make the work we do to eradicate slavery and child labor so urgent. And since approximately 70% of the funding Ghana receives to fight child labor comes from donors, organizations, and government agencies in the US, we need to listen even more carefully and act even more urgently.

2008 Frederick Douglass Freedom Award winner James Kofi Annan’s continued humanitarian work has garnered yet another prestigious award! It was announced last month that James is the 2011 recipient of a Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice award. The award is given to people under the age of 40 who “demonstrate leadership in their fields and who show creativity, commitment, and extraordinary accomplishment in effective positive social change.”

James was sold into slavery at the age of 6 and forced into dangerous work on fishing boats in Ghana for seven years. He finally escaped, taught himself to read, got a college education, and found a small school to help child slavery survivors. In 2003, he founded Challenging Heights, a Ghanaian NGO dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating and educating child survivors of slavery. The Freedom Awards helped James expand his anti-slavery work—to date, he has helped more than 75 children to freedom with a new rescue boat and rehabilitation center.

The Grinnell prize awards him $100,000, which will no doubt help Challenging Heights bring even more children out of slavery.

Last year, James spoke at TEDXGrandValley, an independently organized TED event. If you haven’t already, check out his speech below:

Find out more about James and Challenging Heights here. Or go to the Challenging Heights website here.

2008 Freedom Award winner James Kofi Annan is a survivor of childhood slavery. He was enslaved in Ghana’s fishing industry, forced to work in hazardous conditions on Lake Volta, beaten and subdued, given little to no compensation.

See video of James Kofi Annan rescuing a child from slavery in Ghana.

Annan was able to escape. He went to school and embarked on a successful business career. But he was compelled to go back to Lake Volta to face the trauma of his past. He now dedicates his life to rescuing other child slaves. By doing so, he says, he is “correcting the injustice” that was done to him. Annan started Challenging Heights to rehabilitate rescued child slaves by offering counseling, support, and education. For Annan, access to education was the key to his emancipation. He wants to pass this on to the children he rescues. By going to school, these children have a chance to “recover from trauma and regain hope for the future.”

Keep up to date with Challenging Heights: follow their blog here!

The video above is a short documentary, “Slaves of the Lake,” produced  by British cable network Community Channel. It follows two former fishing slaves rescued by Challenging Heights, and chronicles the boys struggles as they try to re-integrate into lives of freedom. Often, the real challenges of emancipation happen after an enslaved person is rescued. The road to recovery can be a long and treacherous one. True and lasting freedom comes from holistic, community-based solutions—as the documentary above illustrates.

Go here to learn more about Free the Slaves‘ guiding principals.

Your donations help us continue our work. Go here to learn how you can help Free the Slaves eradicate slavery in our lifetime!

• Halogen TV: Jason Mraz crusades for Free the Slaves: “Mraz wept as children sang Luc Reynauld’s ‘Freedom Song.’ He texted Reynauld, telling him about it. Reynauld texted back, saying, ‘It’s their song.’”

Jason visited Free the Slaves partner in Ghana Challenging Heights—an NGO founded by Freedom Award winner James Kofi Annan, a survivor of childhood slavery. Help us support anti slavery organizations around the world. Donate today!

• End Slavery Now: Galleries—Child sex slavery and exploitation: “The reasons [for child sex slavery] are often complex, but the results are the same, children forced to work in a growing sex trade where demand drives even caring parents to do dreadful deeds… for every child who is rescued, there are many more in danger of sexual abuse”

• BBC: Three people charged over ‘baby sale plot’ in London: “Two men and a woman have been charged after an investigation by the News of the World into the alleged sale of an 11-month-old girl… An 11-month-old girl has been taken into the care of Newham Social Services in east London.”

• Change.org: U.S. commits $10 Million to fight child labor in chocolate industry: “The $10 million pledge will create what [Secretary of Labor Hilda] Solis called ‘A New Framework of Action,’ specifically focused on protecting children in the cocoa sectors of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. The project will build community-based monitoring systems to investigate and identify child labor and child slavery, get former child workers back into school, and provide trafficked and at-risk children with supportive services.”

Last June, Jason Mraz traveled to Ghana with Free the Slaves to see the work we do with our partner organization, Challenging Heights. Challenging Heights is founded by Freedom Award winner James Koffi Annan—a survivor of childhood slavery who now dedicates his life to freeing and rehabilitating others. Yeterday, Jason released a video about his travels on his official Youtube channel. Check it out below!

Free the Slaves operates in seven countries, working to bring people out of slavery and eradicating the conditions that make slavery possible in the first place. Help us do our work. Donate today!

Read more about Jason Mraz’s work with Free the Slaves here!

Jason Mraz and Luc and the Lovingtons performed at Freedom Fest last week, in honor of Free the Slaves. Video journalist Urban Nomad interviewed the artists for the LA weekly.

See video of Jason Mraz singing the “Freedom Song” at a shelter for child slavery survivors in Ghana. Mraz visited the shelter with Free the Slaves earlier this year.