NewHopeBenin

SUFA Report: Child Slavery (2004)
This SUFA report focuses on the issue as it affects Africa, focusing on the experiences of Benin in West Africa.

“Research by the World Bank and Terre des Hommes in Burkina Faso highlights the link between a lack of available schooling and the inclination of parents to send their children away to work for others.5 Education is one of the means by which the vulnerability of African children to slavery is reduced. Parents and children who are deprived of education are less aware of the alternatives to the way of life they are familiar with, and less informed about the risks involved in migration.”

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Benin Becomes Unlikely Democracy Leader

“When this West African nation ran short of money to finance its election machinery, voters raised cash, loaned computers and lit up vote-counting centers with their motorcycle headlights. The display of people power demonstrated how a Marxist dictatorship once nicknamed "Africa's Cuba" has become an unlikely leader of Africa's checkered path to democracy.”

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THE CHILD SLAVES; Sold into despair.
Africa's shameful secret
200 years since slavery was abolished in Britain, there are still millions of children who have been abducted from their villages and used as forced labor. And nowhere is this more prolific than in Benin, West Africa, the so-called Slave Coast. This article tells the story of children as young as 8 being sold to traffickers who often promise families that they will provide their child with an education but then are exploited.

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Benin Seeks Child Slave Ship

“Benin has appealed for international help from the United Nations and Western governments to capture a cargo vessel believed to be carrying up to 250 child slaves off the coast of West Africa… The United Nations children's agency, Unicef, are also worried that the ship's captain - a man with a criminal record in Nigeria who has been accused of trafficking child slaves in the past - could dump his human cargo.”

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Education Statistics for Benin
Benin is ranked #159 out 179 countries on the human development scale. Adult Literacy rates are 24% for women and 52% for men. Half of the female population of school-going age is denied the right to education. There is a 26 percentage point gender gap in primary school enrollment. The net enrolment rate for secondary school is 11% for girls and 24% for boys.

Out of school children: how many are there and who are they? UNESCO Institute for Statistics

“Confusion over the number of children out of school largely stems from the lack of information. Indeed this is a very difficult group to measure because traditional sources of data, such as enrolment or graduation records, reflect pupils in school only. Consequently, the UIS is working with key partners to identify out-of-school children and better understand their formal education experiences (if any) and background characteristics. The aim is know how many children are 'falling through the cracks' in education systems and why. ”

Global Education in Developing Nations: Mind the Gap – PBS

Women’s Education and Family Size American Association of Geographers

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