Page 9 - Salesian Bulletin 2016 [01] January-March

street children or in villages off the beaten track.” (...)
Julio: “I will never forget what hap- pened to me. My parents were hav- ing problems with each other. One day my father told me to come with him. He said that we were going the next day to my grandmother in Nigeria.” (...)
Julio worked hard to support him- self and his grandmother, but then one day she sold him to a couple for 30,000 naira (€135). He had to work for them as a slave. The last thing his grandmother said to him was, “You have to suffer today, and hope to have something tomorrow”.
“I used to wake up every morning at five o’clock, and I had to do the housework, and bring their children to school. Then I sold water in the market for 10 or 12 hours, some- times well into the night.” (...)
as a slave to one of the couple’s chil- dren and again he was beaten with many lashes. He ran away several times, managed to escape, and start- ed to live on the streets. Finally, he was intercepted by Nigerian police who handed him back to their col- leagues in Benin.
(Above) Sémé-Krake.
Two kids who were about to be trafficked into Nigeria have been rescued and taken to the police. Here, local police station chief Akodjenou Waidi (right) is ques- tioning them in the presence of Thomas Hounkanrin, a Don Bosco educator who regularly patrols the area trying to prevent traffick- ing.
Joel: “Selling children did not shock anyone since they were mostly street children. It was as if they were already dead. Some of them were killed. They were brought to Nigeria where they were killed. Their heads and their hearts were used in voodoo rituals. (...)
The police entrusted him to the Salesians in Benin, as was the nor- mal practice. They are virtually the only non-governmental organisation that can handle such cases. They have been doing it for twenty years, with a network of shelters and hous- es scattered throughout the country. They also have a group of men who patrol the markets instead of the police at great risk to themselves and expose the traffickers. (...)
because he was taken as a slave before he could go to school.
“The number was huge. Some stayed in Nigeria to maintain con- tacts with the people who bought them. There were also two police- men from Benin. They even lent us police uniforms, so we did not have to worry.” (...)
Joel turned his life around when he became a father. “I used to look at my children and think, how would I feel if someone took them away?”
Julio was treated badly in his new home and was even tortured when the money was gone. He was given
Today Julio has almost completed his apprenticeship as a tailor. He is fluent in French, which he had never had the chance to study earlier
They are among the young people rescued from trafficking by Salesians, like 3,300 others in the year 2014 alone. > To page 11
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