Page 8 - Salesian Bulletin 2016 [01] January-March

BENIN
Cotonou, Dantokpa market.
A street kid holds on to Christophe Dossa, one of the two Don Bosco educators assigned to the market. Dantokpa is one of the biggest markets in West Africa and regularly visited by traffickers looking for easy-to-snatch street kids. Dossa often patrols it and speaks to the kids, to sensitise them about the risks of being trafficked to Nigeria.
B
Children for Sale
A report from Cotonou
Julio was abducted and sold as a slave. Joel was the leader of a gang that seized and sold children. Their story is told by Sergio Ramazzotti, who has made a report on the phenomenon of child trafficking between Benin and Nigeria for the magazine "Africa". We present some excerpts.
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the main export from the country: just change the age (today they are children), the means of transport (by car) and the destination (Nigeria). (...)
enin was once called Dahomey and was known for the quality
of its slaves. But slaves are still
Joel: “In the ghettos of Cotonou everyone has their own trade - ours was taking children. We took them at night, here in the city among the