Background – In Benin it is customary to put a child in the care of a relative that can provide the chance for a better education or just enough to eat.  This is a very sensible practice for children that come from poor families yet has, in recent years, developed into an extremely harmful trade.  UNICEF estimates that 40,000 minors are handed over to people traffickers every year in Benin. They promise to give the poor families’ daughters or sons to wealthy families where they would have to help out yet still be able go to school.  In reality, they are enslaved and forced to work at large markets, on plantations and in mines. Many girls are forced into prostitution. With tougher laws and policing Benin is trying to put a stop to the child trafficking trade, return minors back to their families and eliminate slave labor. The EU is funding a program in Benin which aims to curb this inhumane trade while offering poor families alternatives to child trade. 

Project – The project that Swisscontact carries out on behalf of the EU focuses on improving the career opportunities for 14 to 17-year-olds. Many young people at these ages work in markets in Parakou, Cotonou and Malanville – many as slaves. Swisscontact works in close cooperation with local partner organizations to improve the working and living conditions for the youth and to create training opportunities for them.  The project officers strive to raise awareness of children’s rights among the young people themselves as well as their employers. The youths may enroll in courses to learn how to bake bread, cook, make soap, and do business at the market. Learning these skills gives them new ways to earn money so that they will not be as easily exploited or abused.
This project focuses on training the trainers. The Beninese authorities are the responsible parties for cases of slavery and forced labor. Swisscontact is working towards ensuring that youths have the opportunity to defend themselves against exploitation and to find paid work at the age when most people in West Africa enter the working world.  The lives of these Beninese youths remain difficult, but they are no longer the property of another person and have the chance to take their lives into their own hands.