The International Justice Mission (IJM) works to rescue trafficked children and unite them with their families, yet some issues have been raised in relation to their recent work in West Africa. Last fall in Mogyinga, a tiny village in northern Ghana, four children were forcibly taken from their homes at night by armed men without any explanation to the children’s distressed families. One of the children, eleven-year-old Fatima, was carried out of her home while her grandmother begged the officers to leave the child. This operation took place under Ghana’s preventative Human Trafficking Act, was carried out by Ghanaian police officers, and was instigated by IJM. The organisation reportedly told the police force and social workers the four children’s living and working situations involved trafficking while failing to reach this conclusion within the charity. The mission went ahead simply because IJM concluded all four children were in danger of being used for child labour, not because they already were. 

For four months, the children were kept in an IJM-run shelter before being united with their families after further investigation of their situations. The details of this particular mission, called Operation Hilltop, were investigated by BBC Africa Eye using an undercover reporter within IJM. Just a few days ago, BBC released a documentary called ‘The Night They Came for Our Children’ based on their findings. In a conversation recorded by the secret reporter, an IJM staff member stated the organisation is committed to rescuing a certain number of trafficked children each year in order to continue receiving funding from their donors. In this way, IJM claims to be rescuing children while, in the eyes of many Ghanaian communities, the organisation has been kidnapping their children.

Although human trafficking is an ongoing issue in Ghana, each situation is unique and cases with similar evidence cannot be addressed equally. Trafficked children in Ghana are often used as workers on Lake Volta, where fishing is the primary source of income for many surrounding villages. As fish stocks continue to deplete in Lake Volta and fishermen become more desperate to make a living, they use nets with smaller holes that only a child’s hands can untangle. Children are also used for the dangerous job of diving down to the bottom of the lake to detangle nets. IJM has reportedly rescued various children forced to work in these circumstances. In Fatima’s situation, however, the undercover BBC journalist discovered in IJM’s internal messages the organisation justified taking Fatima and other children from her village simply because they were not attending school and were helping their families work instead.

Fatima recounts her memory of the night she was taken from her home, saying, ‘I was terrified and I started crying, I thought they were taking us away to kill us.’ While in the shelter she continued to worry, fearing her family had died or been killed. Two of Fatima’s uncles were arrested during the operation and faced trials, forced to pay for expensive visits to court until they were declared innocent months later. Unfortunately, Fatima’s grandfather, the chief of her village, died during the four-month period she was in the shelter. Locals believed he was in shock after witnessing his grandchildren being taken away from his home.

According to IJM’s website, the organisation’s ‘Community Protection Model’ states their mission is to not only rescue people in abusive situations but to also ‘prevent the violence from happening in the first place.’ During Operation Hilltop, children were taken from their village by force, with their protesting family members held at gunpoint. These actions do not prevent violence but provoke and sustain it. Although IJM and other organisations may seek to free trafficked children, any steps taken towards doing so need to be made with careful consideration of the familial and cultural situation. Children who are seemingly forced into labour may simply be helping their families work, perhaps because they choose to or because they cannot afford to attend school. While child trafficking must be addressed, this situation cannot be improved forcefully or with a strict timeline. Rather, it begs for conversation and relationship; it begs to be addressed by initiatives supported by outside organisations and led by the communities directly affected by the issue.