International Justice Mission is a multimillion dollar charity that works to save and reunite trafficked children with their families. However, there are significant issues with their operations in West Africa.
On September 6, 2022, just after midnight, Musah Mustafa went outside to use the restroom and noticed four automobiles zooming toward his tiny community.
Mogyigna was merely a little town. It was more like a dot in the center of a vast countryside in northern Ghana, with just a few family dwellings and twenty individuals in total. Even during the day, it was uncommon to see a car. Musah watched from behind a tree. He shouted in an effort to awaken the other occupants as he watched armed men approach the two homes from the automobiles.
The men forcedfully removed four youngsters from the huts before anyone could intervene, holding an 11-year-old girl named Fatima by her hand.
IJM is one of the top anti-trafficking organizations in the world, receiving about $100 million (£78 million) in financing annually during the last two years.Nearly 300 churches in the UK are said to support IJM, and IJM UK generated more than £220,000 ($280,000) from churches and other contributors to fund activities in Ghana last year.
However, our analysis revealed that IJM had taken some children away from their families in situations where there was little to no proof of trafficking, and this aggressive approach may have been encouraged by a target-driven culture inside IJM.
We discovered two incidents of documented rescue operations in which children were taken away against their will, in a painful manner, and without cause; the children’s families were then charged with child trafficking. Fatima’s case was one of them.
About 300,000 people rely on the lake as their primary source of income, and children who work in the region’s fishing sector are subjected to varied levels of exploitation: some support their families through fishing, while others are hired to work under boat masters for little to no compensation.
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The extent of the child trafficking issue on Lake Volta is poorly understood due to the paucity of reliable data. More than half of all youngsters working on the lake were victims of trafficking, according to an IJM report from 2016.
The organization started saving kids from canoes on the lake in 2015, but in 2018 it started conducting night raids on places where kids were allegedly being kept overnight on land.
Such a raid took place that evening in the village of Mogyigna.
While Mohammed’s father, together with the fathers of the other two children, agreed the boy should live somewhere else, Fatima is now back in the village and in the care of her grandma Sana.
The people in Mogyigna told Africa Eye that although they were relieved that the children had been returned, Operation Hilltop’s consequences were still being felt five months after the rescue.
Fatima expressed her concern that the BBC team had arrived to remove her once more.
About the night of Operation Hilltop, the 11-year-old recalled, “I was terrified and I started crying.” “I believed they were removing us in order to murder us. We were unsure of their intended destination.
The anti-slavery program of IJM includes prosecutions as a crucial component since, according to the nonprofit, they act as a deterrent. Court records reveal that during one of the court hearings, an IJM attorney filled in for the state prosecutor.Although the case against the uncles was ultimately dismissed and their names cleared, it is still an issue for them. They claimed that certain members of their family have stopped communicating with them because they believe they “colluded” in some way “with the people who took the children away”.
Africa Eye discovered a second questionable rescue when looking into Operation Hilltop. A kid and his brother were separated from their family in 2019 as a result of an operation, and the mother of the children, Mawusi Amlade, received a five-year prison sentence for child trafficking.
The most difficult part of being in prison, according to Ms. Amlade, was being separated from her children and not knowing what had happened to them.
She told Africa Eye, “I had no idea where my children had been taken; I kept thinking about them more than anything else.”
Two years later, in a strange turn of events, Ms. Amlade’s conviction was overturned thanks to involvement from the Sudreau Global Justice Institute, a partner organization of IJM and another US NGO.
The reporter questioned an IJM investigator what would happen if mission personnel were unable to remove the kids during a different meeting. The staff member retorted, “We need to get some; we can’t say we didn’t get even one.”In reviewing the conversations that were secretly recorded, Dr. Sam Okyere, a senior lecturer from the University of Bristol who worked on Lake Volta performing field research into child rescue operations, highlighted concerns regarding the apparent target-driven culture.
People would work harder to fulfill the goals if they were afraid of losing their dream jobs, according to Dr. Okyere.
Concerning the allegations of a target-driven culture, the nonprofit organization responded, “IJM Ghana sets targets in order to evaluate impact so that we can provide the most effective support to authorities to stop child trafficking.”
IJM refuted the claim that employees were punished for missing goals.
The charity’s team in Ghana, according to the statement, is “led and staffed by Ghanaian nationals who support the Ghanaian authorities to bring trafficked children to safety, help restore survivors’ physical and mental wellbeing, and stop those responsible for illegally exploiting children.”
The welfare of the child is always at the forefront of our approach, it was said. The 76 operations that IJM Ghana financed helped the Ghanaian government transport hundreds of kids to safety.
But when Fatima, a real child with real people caring for her, was allowed back to her village, there was no such embrace.
Fatima’s grandfather, who had watched as armed men burst into his home and took his granddaughter away, died while she was in the shelter.
“My grandfather was very loving, he used to give us gifts,” Fatima said. “When I came back, I was crying and wondering, since my grandfather has left us, where would we see him again?”
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