Area (2005) 37.4, 393– 401
Exploiting West Africa’s children: trafficking,
slavery and uneven development
Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.
Kate Manzo
Department of Geography, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle NE1 7RU
Email: Kate.Manzo@newcastle.ac.uk
Revised manuscript received 9 June 2005
This paper analyses child trafficking and slavery in relation to media coverage of West
African children, international law and academic research within geography and development
studies. The meaning and practice of child trafficking is examined in the context of
related debates about child labour, exploitation and uneven development. The analysis
highlights key differences between trafficking and slavery, thereby illuminating the varying
forms of exploitation at work in different relations of power.
Key words: trafficking, slavery, exploitation, uneven development
Introduction
The Etireno rocks gently against the quay; the smallest
ship in a small west African port . . . The Etireno was
a notorious slave ship, the UN children’s fund
(Unicef) confirmed. (Astill 2001a, 1)
As the quote above shows, global issues of child
trafficking and some of the worst forms of child
labour, such as slavery, have captured media
interest. While such coverage is celebrated by human
rights campaigners for its ‘great impact’ on public
awareness (Salah 2001, 5), a less charitable view
dismisses ‘media hype’ as part of exaggerated ‘moral
panics about children’s vulnerability’ (Robson 2005,
73, 68).
Other academics fault reporting designed solely
for ‘human interest shock value’ (Bass 2004, 10).
And yet, there are children embedded within ‘very
real political and economic processes of exploitation,
unevenness and inequality’ (Power 2003, 190). The
appropriate response to ‘hype’ is therefore not to deny
exploitation but to try to understand it analytically
(Robson 2005, 73).
This paper’s central premise is that trafficking and
slavery are related yet different phenomena. Trafficking is not a ‘new form of slavery’ (Bass 2004,
152) because different actors, features and mechanisms co-exist with the similarities. The common
denominator is exploitation. But just as Bass (2004)
argues for recognizing different forms of child
labour, I argue for seeing that exploitative power
relations – such as those involved in child trafficking in West Africa – need not involve force.
The paper uses a range of existing sources (rather
than new empirical material) to support key ideas
and arguments. Sources include those that echo
academic research in finding the roots of West
African trafficking in customs of child fostering and
situations of poverty (Bass 2004; Robson 2005). The
poverty factor ought not to be over-estimated at a
time when it is constructed as a ‘dire global problem’ (Power 2003, 188) and a defining feature of
Africa (Manzo 2003). I suggest that poverty’s role in
trafficking is best understood within a wider (in this
case, West African) context of inequality and uneven
development. But whatever their limitations, nonacademic documents are valuable if they show ‘how
culture is embedded in political economy, and
political economy is expressed through culture’
(White 2002, 734).
Whether or not policy implications flow from this
analysis is for the reader to decide. The sparking of
ISSN 0004-0894 © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2005
394 Manzo
further policy debate would not be unwelcome.
However, explicit policy considerations are beyond
the scope of a paper designed as an academic
contribution to related literatures within geography and
development studies. There is a growing body of
literature, first of all, on childhood, children’s rights
and child labour within the context of globalization
and development practice (see, for example, Burman
1994; Moore 2000; Aitken 2001; White 2002; Ruddick
2003). Within this broad frame are studies of West
African children in the context of globalization
(Robson 2004 2005) and of child labour in subSaharan Africa (Bass 2004). Related work theorizes
the nature of contemporary slavery (Bales 1999
2002) and analyses the implications of rights-based
development discourse for Africa in the context
of globalization and uneven development (Manzo
2003).
What then is the meaning of child trafficking and
what does it entail in West Africa? In situating the
first question within international legal context, part
one treats international law as a site of paradox and
contestation and not as either a pure expression of
cultural imperialism (a flag-waver for child labour
abolitionism) or as the architect of a new, postabolitionist approach. The object of this discussion
is, on the one hand, to show that disputes over
meaning underpin disputes over numbers. While
there is general agreement that child trafficking exists,
disagreements over its magnitude are underpinned
by different understandings of the terms child and
trafficking. This is a conceptual and political problem
that cannot be resolved by more data alone.
On the other hand, the first part explores the relationship in international law between conceptions
of rights and understandings of exploitation. Children
now enjoy exclusive rights to play and education as
well as such universal rights as the right to life.
Within a context where childhood is constituted
as a space of entitlement to ‘special care and assistance’ (UNICEF undated, 1), the elimination of labour
from childhood remains an ultimate aim. And yet,
simultaneously, international law fudges the adult/
child boundary by recognizing the concept of ‘child
worker’ and targeting only the worst forms of child
labour such as slavery. It is here – in international
texts designed to proscribe exploitation – that trafficking and slavery are conceptually entwined. Part
one concludes with a schematic that untangles the
two terms, thereby highlighting the varying forms of
exploitation operating within different relations of
power.
In turning to the West African context, part two
emphasizes that trafficking involves relations of
power between traffickers and parents as well as
traffickers and children. The central elements of trafficking are not labour or force but rather movement
and exploitation. As agents rather than slaveholders,
traffickers do not exploit children’s labour power (at
least not directly) any more than the agents who
buy the cocoa from African farmers. What traffickers
exploit is traditional practices (child fostering) and
situations of poverty within a wider context of uneven development.
Within a global framework of children’s rights
and ‘moral panics’, questions about child abuse are
inevitably legal and moral. But as the conclusion
reiterates, such questions are also the stuff of development geography. Focus on children uncovers the
many agents of exploitation at work in conditions of
inequality and uneven development.
Child trafficking in international context:
childhood, rights and labour
Scholars increasingly recognise that the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child uses privileged and
idealized Western concepts of childhood . . . Efforts
to use other definitions of childhood based on local
cultural constructs . . . tend to situate a child within
an impoverished context. (Bass 2004, 19)
Child trafficking is based on distinctions of gender,
place and age. Trafficked girls from rural Africa tend
to be employed by urban women as street vendors
or domestics, whereas boys tend to be employed by
rural men on farms or plantations (Bass 2004).
While the younger child is not necessarily the most
abused (Moore 2000, 539), traffickers can be drawn
to apparent docility and ignorance. As one infamous
trafficker has put it,
A little child knows nothing . . . Older children know
how to escape, but the little ones don’t run away, they
don’t know their way home. They just stay there
working, working, working. (Philomene Tegble, quoted
in Frenkiel 2001, 6; see also BBC2 2001).
Constructions of childhood are clearly central to
any assessment of the child trafficking phenomenon,
so this section begins by considering the universal
norm of childhood founded by the United Nations
(UN). The concept of child labour is then considered
because this is where national variations and age
distinctions are legally recognized.
Exploiting West Africa’s children 395
Adult or child? The construction of childhood in
international law
Recognition of children’s rights entered international
law in 1990 – the same year the UN General
Assembly ratified the Convention on the Rights of
the Child (CRC). While ushering in a ‘new era for
children’ (Bellamy 1998, 4), the CRC universalized
a Western model of childhood as an 18-year time
period characterized by school, play and freedom
from responsibility (Moore 2000; Aitken 2001; White
2002). Article 1 defines a child as ‘every human
being below the age of eighteen unless under the
law applicable to the child, majority is attained
earlier’ (see UNICEF undated, 2). This has been
criticized in Nigeria and elsewhere for failing to
accommodate the working child and acknowledge
cultural differences (Moore 2000; Robson 2005).
The construction of everyone under 18 as children
has become ever more apparent since 1990. The
CRC’s gesture at national law is absent, for example,
from the UN’s 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress
and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women
and Children. Article 3(d) defines a child as simply
‘any person under eighteen years of age’ (United
Nations 2000, 2).
Most of the Etireno children were under ten
(Frenkiel 2001, 6). The small people shown tearfully
sucking their thumbs in the television documentary
‘Slave Children’ (BBC2 2001) were arguably children
in anyone’s book. Adolescents, by contrast, are conceivably more adult than child – especially those
that work (Moore 2000; White 2002; Robson 2004).
Yet discussions of child trafficking and labour in
West Africa do not always question convention. The
category of childhood has been applied, for example,
to ‘young boys whose ages range from 12 to 16’
(Chanthavong 2002, 1) and to ‘boys and girls aged
from 6 –18 years old’ (International Society for Human
Rights 2002, 3).
While re-inscribing a Western ideal, international
conventions on child labour do allow for legal
distinctions between age groups. The International
Labour Organisation’s Minimum Age Convention of
1973 (C138) has been called ‘the most widely used
yardstick when establishing how many children are
currently working around the world’ (Bellamy 1998,
25– 6). Article 2 (paragraph 3) sets 15 years as the
universal minimum working age for a child.
And yet, C138 contradicts its own ideal of a simple
temporal cut-off by suggesting an acceptable age
range of 12–18 (Bellamy 1998, 25). The recognized
variables (which appear even in Article 2) are:
1 age of completion of compulsory schooling;
2 level of national development; and
3 the nature of work.
In sum, C138 proscribes any form of work ‘likely to
jeopardise the health, safety or morals of young
persons’. At the same time, the 12-year-old resident
of a country with an ‘insufficiently developed’
economy and educational system may perform ‘light
work’ that, by definition, does no harm (ILO 1973, 2).
Even more pertinent is ILO Convention 182 – a
general prohibition on the worst forms of child
labour. Hailed as a welcome departure from ‘strict
abolitionism’ (Moore 2000, 542), C182 co-exists,
paradoxically, with IPEC – the ILO’s International
Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour.
IPEC aims for the ‘progressive elimination of child
labour’ even as it focuses strategically on the same
targets as C182 (ILO 2005). These targets include
forms of work already proscribed by C138. They
also include ‘all forms of slavery or practices similar
to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of
children’ (ILO 1999, 2).
All of this suggests viewing international law as a
locus of paradoxes due to global contestations over
the rights of the ‘unchildlike child’ (Aitken 2001) –
the young worker who disrupts Western fantasies
of childhood as a period of innocent dependency
(Burman 1994). The following section explores related
contestations over the meaning of key terms that,
although central to C182 are not defined by it, i.e.
trafficking and slavery.
Child trafficking and slavery in international law
The centrality of the UN to debates about child
trafficking is apparent in discussions of numbers.
The conventional wisdom is that 200 000 children a
year are trafficked in West Africa alone. That ‘rough
number’ (Bass 2004, 153) has been cited by UNICEF
(see Thiessen 2001, 19); the International Society
for Human Rights (2002, 2); and journalists such as
Frenkiel (2001, 6) and Astill (2001a, 1; 2001b, 19).
Yet, as Human Rights Watch has noted, the conventional figure is contested. Government estimates
tend to be lower, while non-governmental organizations have raised them higher. This means that ‘there
are unfortunately no precise estimates of the number
of children trafficked in West Africa overall’ (Cohen
in Christian Science Monitor 2003, 2).
The UN estimate necessarily reduces if a cluster
of youngsters (such as teenagers) are removed from
the construction of childhood. However, disputes
396 Manzo
over numbers are not simply a matter of the meaning of the term child. Such disputes are also about
understandings of the concept of trafficking.
As defined by the UN General Assembly in 1994,
trafficking is
the illegal and clandestine movement of persons across
national and international borders . . . with the end goal
of forcing women, girls and children into sexually or
economically oppressive and exploitative situations.
(quoted in Child Workers in Asia undated, 1)
Because trafficking by that definition entails movement
across borders, some have argued that trafficking can
be difficult to distinguish from mere travel or ordinary
migration (Chanthavong 2002, 6; International
Society for Human Rights 2002, 2; Bass 2004, 157).
Only trafficking is illegal and clandestine. But then
illegality means that ‘trafficking networks are often
informal and secretive in nature’ and therefore
difficult in practice to identify (Salah 2001, 3).
That UN definition makes clear that trafficking is
about the purpose as well as the presence of movement, so child trafficking cannot be determined with
reference to movement alone. The 1994 definition
has itself been criticized for its limited focus on force
at the point of departure; on females; and on particular
situations such as domestic labour and false marriages (Child Workers in Asia undated, 1). But notably,
force has become less significant than control in the
UN’s understanding of human trafficking.
Article 3(a) of the 2000 Protocol recognizes
other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of
deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of
vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments
or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having
control over another person, for the purpose of
exploitation. (United Nations 2000, 2)
What is meant by exploitation is
at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of
others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced
labour or services, slavery or practices similar to
slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. (United
Nations 2000, 2)
The wider significance of Article 3(a) is its analytical
distinction between trafficking and slavery. Slavery
is a form of exploitation whereas trafficking is a
means to exploitation. And yet, the two terms are
often confused. In an overview of ‘types of slavery’,
for instance, the International Society for Human
Rights includes ‘trafficking in human beings usually
women and children for economic gain using force
or deception’ (2002, 1).
The UN may have invited such confusion by
including references to trafficking in anti-slavery
conventions (and vice versa). In its Slavery, Forced
Labour and Similar Institutions and Practices Convention of 1926, the old League of Nations defined
slavery as ‘the status or condition of a person over
whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right
of ownership are exercised’ (quoted in Bales and
Robbins 2001, 21). There, ‘it does not matter whether
or not a master actually owns a particular slave, if
he exercises powers over him that are normally
associated with ownership’ (De Ste Croix 1988, 22).
When the UN passed the Rome Final Act of 1998,
a reference to trafficking was added to the established
understanding of slavery. Slavery became
the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the
right of ownership over a person and includes the
exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in
persons, in particular women and children. (quoted in
Bales and Robbins 2001, 27)
In its defence, however, the Rome Final Act does not
turn trafficking into a form of slavery. It suggests only
that slavery may occur in the course of trafficking.
The most likely explanation for conceptual confusion is simply that trafficking and slavery (like childhood) mean different things to different people –
sometimes to the same organization. Bass classifies
trafficking as a ‘new form of slavery’ after defining
it as ‘the movement of people from one place to
another through force, coercion, or deception to
exploit them for their labor’ (2004, 152). Former US
Secretary of State Colin Powell (quoted in Bass 2004,
148) and UNICEF’s Regional Director for West and
Central Africa have also described child trafficking
as a ‘modern form of slavery’ (Salah 2001, 2). But
then UNICEF UK – following refusal to call the
Etireno a ‘slave’ ship – insisted that trafficking in
West Africa can only be stopped if differentiated from
slavery. Whereas ‘slavery is against the will of the
individual’, traffickers in West Africa elicit consent
via mythical ‘tales of the good life’ and the ‘false
perception’ these generate (Frenkiel 2001, 6 –7;
Thiessen 2001, 19).
Whatever its policy implications, that UNICEF
distinction between trafficking and slavery is analytically useful and theoretically sound. Modern
conceptions of slavery tend to include forced labour
or ‘coercive labour regimes’ as a central element
Exploiting West Africa’s children 397
Table 1
Trafficking
Slavery
Movement (through migration within and across
national borders)
Exploitation of custom and tradition (the practice
of child fostering) and inequality (through deception,
fraud and control)
Loss of freedom of movement (through violence
or threat, coercion and containment)
Exploitation of labour power (through force,
coercion and loss of freedom of movement)
(Blackburn 1988, 273). This is certainly the case in
the seminal work of Bales (1999), who equates ‘new
slavery’ with violence, control, coercion and the
exploitation of labour power. An earlier classic
equated slavery with permanence, violence and
coercion (Patterson 1982) if not with the legal
ownership of people also mentioned by Blackburn
(1988, 262).
What all of those definitions share – both with
each other and with certain press reports of West
African child slaves (see Savoor 2001, 1) – is an
emphasis on force and labour. Slavery is therefore
a ‘face’ of forced labour, whereas trafficking by
agents, recruiters and transporters is only a means to
that end (ILO 2001, 48).
Taking into account the concept of movement,
the key distinctions between trafficking and slavery
that are reinforced in part two can be summarized
as in Table 1. This schematic presents movement as
a necessary element of trafficking only and exploitation of labour power as a necessary element of
slavery only. Trafficked children move whereas slaves
are ‘unable to walk away’ (Bales 2002, 2) and ‘held
against their will’ (Morris 2000, 3). Relations of
power thus vary in terms of control versus force, even
as the common denominator is exploitation. Unlike
in the UN’s 2000 Protocol, trafficking and slavery
are both viewed here as forms of exploitation as
well as means to exploitation. The other essential
distinction therefore concerns the factors being
exploited. It is to that issue that the paper now turns.
Child trafficking in West Africa: culture,
poverty and uneven development
The Pied Piper who leads the children away with their
parents’ blessing . . . is the key to this modern slavery.
Often one of the child’s own relatives, he is commissioned to take full advantage of the extended family,
and of the poor man’s assumption that anywhere is
better than here. (Astill 2001a, 3)
Fostering or trafficking? The exploitation of
custom and tradition
Coverage of trafficking in West Africa abounds with
references to all the means given in the UN’s 2000
Protocol. Some children have been abducted and
forced into slavery, while others have been lured
(with parental consent) by the Pied Piper figure –
the modern trafficker who may be a blood relative
or family friend as well as a seller of children (see
ILO 2001, 50; Raghavan 2001; Sheil 2001, 1;
Chanthavong 2002, 2; International Society for
Human Rights 2002, 2; Hinsliff 2003, 13).
Pied Pipers beg the question of why West African
parents would knowingly sanction departure with
‘slave traders’ (American Anti-slavery Group undated,
1–2). One answer is that many do not. In these
cases, it is not enslavement that is being sanctioned
but ‘a valuable heritage and traditional ways of educating a child’ (Robson 2005, 70). As Bass concurs,
‘the root of modern-day trafficking is the custom
of child fostering, in which parents may send their
children to live with relations and friends for economic or moral reasons’ (2004, 153).
The custom of ‘cultural placement’ (ILO 2001,
50) is rooted in a reciprocal arrangement, whereby
child labour is exchanged for education and/or
training as well as the means of subsistence. What
Bass (2004, 23) calls ‘fostering work relationships’
are not inherently exploitative (or illegal). In Ivory
Coast, for example, children as young as 12 may
do ‘light agricultural work’, although the official
school leaving age is 16 (Chanthavong 2002, 12).
The mere presence of 12-year-old migrants on
Ivorian cocoa farms is not tantamount to either
trafficking or slavery. The element of exploitation
must also be present.
In Benin, ‘slavers often play off a local tradition of
“vidomegon,” where village children work as servants
to wealthy urban families in return for education
and training’ (American Anti-slavery Group undated, 2).
False promises of reciprocity and return are
398 Manzo
precisely what turn a cultural practice into a relationship of exploitation. This is why trafficking has
been called an ‘abuse of Africa’s extended family
tradition’ (Astill 2001a, 1) and why the trafficking of
children from Mali to Ivory Coast amounts to ‘a kind
of perversion of a traditional practice’ (Ngokwey,
cited in Raghavan 2001, 3).
What Bales calls the ‘weak rule of law’ is relevant
where it facilitates the violence considered central
to slavery. In Bales’ words, ‘widespread corruption
of government and police allows violence to be
used with impunity even when slavery is nominally
illegal’ (Bales 2002, 3). Other sources suggest that
trafficking too exploits ineffective legislation and
lack of enforcement (American Anti-slavery Group
undated, 1; Frenkiel 2001, 7; Chanthavong 2002,
12; International Society for Human Rights 2002, 6;
Bass 2004, 62).
However, the exploitation of tradition by traffickers
is arguably more pertinent than the exploitation of
law precisely because violence and force can be
removed from the equation. Coercion is not ‘the key
element behind trafficking’ (Child Workers in Asia
undated, 1) in the sense that trafficking thrives better
on willingness. Traffickers are attracted to areas
where ‘young children and their parents are all too
willing to believe slavers’ stories of prosperity in
countries like Ivory Coast’ (American Anti-slavery
Group undated, 1–2). The most attractive areas of
all (such as rural Togo) are those where youngsters
show ‘willingness to go with the traffickers with
their parents’ approval’ (International Society for
Human Rights 2002, 4).
The roots of all this willingness are themselves
partly familial and cultural. It can be difficult to alert
West African parents to the dangers of trafficking when
the idea of adults harming children – especially
when those adults are relatives or friends – is an
alien concept (see Raghavan 2001, 3; Salah 2001,
4; Sheil 2001, 1).
The roots of consent are also economic as well
as cultural, because promises vary. Children have
been promised material goods such as bicycles or
radios (Raghavan and Chatterjee 2001, 4; Bass
2004, 160), while parents are sometimes ‘lured by a
promise of money’ (Raghavan 2001) – either for
themselves (a cash payment) or for their children
(wage labour). In situations of poverty, ‘stories of
hope’ (Bass 2004, 160) and ‘images of the “good
life” ’ elsewhere (Robson 2005, 69) can be hard to
resist, as the following section now illustrates in
more detail.
Uneven development and the exploitation of
poverty
If the buying and selling of persons (legal or otherwise)
is a defining feature of slavery then there is no real
distinction between traffickers and slaveholders. But
even in situations where monetary exchange precedes
movement (see Astill 2001a, 3; Frenkiel 2001, 6; John
2002, 34; Bass 2004, 90), parents are not necessarily
selling their children into slavery, for three reasons.
Firstly, the offer of money may be understood as a
wage – a down-payment on the freely-offered
labour of the child. Secondly, the parents involved
may be ignorant of their children’s fate given their
physical separation from actual slaveholders by ‘a
chain of intermediaries, transporters and border
smugglers’ (Astill 2001a, 3). And last but not least,
parents are led (by the means already discussed) to
expect more for their children than slavery.
‘Would you like a great job in Cote d’Ivoire?’ ask
child traffickers in Mali (quoted in Raghavan 2001,
1–2). Anecdotes such as this illustrate two obvious
points about the economics of trafficking. The first is
that cash payments to parents are not always necessary. In reference to young migrants in Ivory Coast,
for example, a study by the International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture gives the main motivation as
‘the promise of a better life . . . None of the children
reported that their parents had been paid and none
reported being forced against their will to leave
their home abode’ (2002, 13).
The second point is that trafficking flourishes
where poverty is itself a symptom of a structural
problem, namely high unemployment. Here, a better
life is not signalled by education and training but
by the lure of a wage. Whereas ‘boys are more
likely to emigrate to find work than girls’, rural children in general are more likely to work away from
their parents than urban ones (Bass 2004, 90, 88).
All of this suggests a robust relationship between
poverty and trafficking. Parents who ‘sell their children’
from ‘poor countries such as Benin, Mali, Senegal
and Togo’ blame their actions on poverty (Frenkiel
2001, 6). However, as the studies cited in Table 2
make clear, the relationship between trafficking and
poverty is not always either direct or uncomplicated.
My argument here is that poverty is best contextualized within wider patterns of uneven geographical
development. Using standard measures and variables for two West African countries, Table 3 illustrates a regional dimension to the unequal spatial
patterns studied by development geographers (see,
for example, Perrons 2004).
Exploiting West Africa’s children 399
Table 2
Poverty as an indirect contributor to trafficking
Poverty’s co-contributors to trafficking
Poverty breeds desperation (Sheil 2001; Chanthavong 2002)
Poverty (like disease and civil war) facilitates breakdown in
social structures (Bass 2004)
Good infrastructure (Astill 2001a)
Unemployment; searches for education; trust;
traditional migration of adults; high demand
for cheap labour and vulnerable workers;
physical mobility; youthful desires for migration;
and weak rules of law (Robson 2005, 73;
Salah 2001)
Lack of regulation of illegal migrant workers
(UNICEF, cited in Astill 2001b)
Poverty is mediated by exploitation and false promises
(Bellamy 1998; Cohen in Christian Science Monitor 2003)
Table 3
Indicators of uneven development
Human development index: HDI ranka
Human and income poverty: Human poverty index (HPI-1) rankb
Human and income poverty: Population % below income poverty line
of US$1 a day (1990 –2002)
Demographic trends: Total fertility rate (births per woman) (2000 –2005)
Economic performance: GDP per capita (US$) (2002)
Structure of trade: Primary exports (% of merchandise exports) (2002)
Cote d’Ivoire
Mali
163
79
15.5
174
93
72.8
4.7
707
85
7.0
296
–
Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2004
a
High = 1–55; Medium = 56−141; Low = 142−177
b
Ranks are for 95 developing countries only
Analysis of the causes of uneven development
in West Africa is clearly beyond the scope of this
paper. What the comparative data are designed to
show, first of all, is why trafficking is so often international (and not always from global South to global
North). Traffickers rely on perceptions of uneven
development; on the idea that while there is poverty
‘here’ there is wealth and prosperity ‘there’. In the
imagery of push and pull, poor families may be
pushed by poverty into consenting to trafficking, but
they are simultaneously pulled by images or stories
of relative prosperity elsewhere.
The data further suggest why West African trafficking must entail fraud and deception if not
violence and coercion. Traffickers hide the reality of
life in street vending, domestic service and cocoa
farming. They ‘typically entice parents with false
promises of high quality education, paid work, and
vocational training [for the child]’ (Cohen in Christian Science Monitor 2003, 1). Traffickers exploit
poverty by promising what they cannot deliver – the
great job and the better future – in countries that
(like Ivory Coast) remain marked by limited job
opportunities thanks to high levels of dependence
on export commodity production.
Whether or not any job is better than none is a
matter of interpretation. But at least in the terms of
the child labour laws mentioned earlier, no child
employment can be viewed as beneficial if it violates a child’s rights to education and freedom from
harm. Well beyond the pale are the worst forms of
child labour, such as slavery.
Conclusion
Initially inspired by media coverage, this paper has
argued for viewing trafficking and slavery as related
yet different forms of exploitation, rather than treating
trafficking as a new or modern form of slavery.
Child traffickers may thus be agents of slaveholders
but they are not themselves ‘slavers’. Nor do they
operate necessarily through force, coercion and
400 Manzo
violence. In the West African context, the most
evocative image is that of the Pied Piper, whose
stock in trade is exploitation via deception and
fraud.
Sources used in support of the main arguments
ranged from media reports to international legal
documents and academic research. Taken together,
these sources highlight the importance of critical
analysis of key concepts and assumptions. They
argue for integrating culture and political economy
and for situating moral concerns about issues such
as child labour and poverty within appropriate contexts. And last but not least, they suggest that behind
moral panics and abolitionist agendas are ongoing
questions for development geography about unevenness, inequality and exploitation.
The real advantage of separating trafficking from
slavery, I suggest in conclusion, is that it prompts
additional questions about power and its exercise.
This paper asked how child trafficking is enabled
and sustained in West Africa. Its focus was parents,
children and traffickers (rather than slaves and
slaveholders) and its emphasis was on control (via
deception and fraud) rather than force.
Future studies of trafficking might test the validity
of this argument in other contexts, or identify situations where the labour of trafficked children has not
been exploited in the ways suggested here. Analyses
of slavery, meanwhile, might usefully ask whether it
can operate without violence and force, or try to
explain another key characteristic, namely labour
exploitation. This would direct renewed attention to
an issue clearly still open to debate (Bass 2004, 159),
namely the thorny question of how slavery both
differs from, and co-exists with, other contemporary
forms of the super-exploitation of labour power.
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