Page 11 - Salesian Bulletin 2016 [01] January-March

Photos: Sergio Ramazzotti/Parallelozero
Porto-Novo, Catchi neighbour- hood. Street kids in the Don Bosco shelter.
The structure shelters around 60 so-called “first phase” kids, those who have accepted to leave the street and try to get back to a normal life. Most of them have been abused and show deep psychological issues
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Those who manage to escape are regularly entrusted by helpless Beninese authorities to the Don Bosco network of shelters, set up by the Salesians in the mid 1990s and the only organisation in the country which actively deals with the issue.
would then be sprayed with chili powder. But Julio and the many oth- ers like him might just be the lucky ones: several of the kids are not taken to Nigeria to work, but, according to all government sources, like the chief judge of Porto-Novo's juvenile court, to be sacrificed, their heads and hearts used in traditional rituals of black magic.
Every year, between 100,000 and 200,000 kids are estimated to be traf- ficked from Benin to nearby Nigeria. Many of them are street kids snatched in Beninese markets by professional traffickers, who sell them for up to 100 U.S. dollars each. Some are actually sold to traffickers by their parents for as little as 30 U.S. dollars.
When they talk about their years of slavery, the rescued kids tell chill- ing stories, which regularly include episodes of physical abuse and tor- ture. Julio, a 19-year-old kid, recalls a recurring punishment: cuts would be opened in his feet soles with a razor blade, and the fresh wounds
Photos:
Sergio Ramazzotti Parallelo Zero: http://www.parallelozero.com/rep ortage/benin-nigeria-kids-traffick- ing-476-0
The majority of the kids end up working in slavery conditions for a Nigerian master, and never make it back to their homeland and family .
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