Currently, there are an estimated 49.6 million people in modern slavery globally, more than the entire population of Uganda, generating more than $150 billion annually.
There are about 27.6 million people in forced labor on any given day. Tragically, more than 3.3 million of these are children. And I was one of them, sent away at the age of 6 to work on a fishing boat on Lake Volta, nine hours away from my home in Winneba, Ghana. I managed to escape after seven years but my story is not everyone’s story.
There is no law in Africa that makes it mandatory for African businesses to address human trafficking and modern slavery in their supply chains and members of the African Continental Free Trade Area, or AfCFTA, need to change this.
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About the author
James Kofi Annan
James Kofi Annan is founder and president of Challenging Heights in Ghana. He started the multiple award-winning organization to combat child trafficking in the fishing industry on Lake Volta, after spending seven years there as a modern child slave. He previously served as board chair of Family for Every Child for six years.
