The International Organization for Migration has begun a programme to end child trafficking in Ghana.

Hundreds of children are employed in slave-like conditions by the numerous fishing communities along the shores of Lake Volta in central Ghana, where forcing children to work is not a crime.

But now the Ghanaian Government plans to change the law and it is helping the Geneva-based IOM to send the children back home.

The IOM believes more than 1,200 children in the central Volta region and other areas of Ghana have been trafficked for forced labour.

The victims, mostly boys between five and 14 years of age, are made to work from dawn till dusk, casting and drawing fishing nets for the men they call their slave masters.

A number of them have drowned recently, trying to release nets caught on the bottom of the lakes.

Financial aid

As part of its scheme to free the boys, the IOM is offering the fisherman new, up-to-date equipment and training in exchange for the safe return of the children.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy, a spokesman for the migration organisation, says the programme will also try to help parents become financially self-sufficient, so they are not tempted to mortgage their children for much-needed money.

"We are going to make micro-credits available to their parents," he said.

"We're going to ask them to think about an activity they'd like to do - that could be small retail for instance - and we'll then help them financially so that they can set up their own business and generate income.

"The root cause of this trafficking phenomenon is the poverty, the desperate poverty of the parents who are ready to accept offers from traffickers," he added.

New legislation

At present, buying and selling children is not illegal in Ghana.

However the IOM says its scheme has won the full backing of the Ghanaian Government.

The authorities are already helping the organisation to register the trafficked boys in a bid to reunite them with their families.

They have also promised to implement new legislation which will outlaw the practice of child trafficking.