Displaying items by tag: convictions

Thousands of children aged between three and seventeen live in slavery on Lake Volta, working up to 18 hours a day in the fishing industry. They are paid in daily abuse and threats, and the only way out is to drown or be rescued. Praise God for two convictions when the accused men pleaded guilty to human trafficking. One of them, who used the children for labour on his fishing boat, must also pay a fine or spend an additional year to the five-year sentence if unable to pay. While IJM has previously seen convictions for child labour in Ghana, these are their first for human trafficking, and a significant step toward ending slavery in the fishing industry.

In January bold judgments in Philippine courts have been protecting children, and global collaboration is tackling a form of modern slavery that was unimaginable before the digital age. Trafficking convictions, secured in courts across the Philippines, held four Filipina women accountable for abusing and exploiting children, and sharing that abuse with predators around the world who were willing to pay. The Philippine government receives thousands of cybersex trafficking case referrals like these every month - cases in which paying customers around the world can easily connect online with an adult in the Philippines who has access to vulnerable children. With just an internet connection and a webcam or mobile device, these traffickers abuse boys and girls, or force them to perform sex acts, for the foreign customers who are paying to watch. The cases reaching court judgments last month represented over a dozen young survivors - the youngest only three years old.