BBC Tuesday, 17 April, 2001, 02:16 GMT 03:16 UK

'Slave ship' arrives in Benin

The ship arrived in the port of Cotonu A ship suspected of carrying child slaves has arrived in the West African country of Benin, but there is no sign of the 200-plus children the authorities had said it was carrying.

Cabinet ministers, police, soldiers, journalists and United Nations officials crowded the dockside in the port of Cotonou for the arrival of the Nigerian-registered Etireno, which has been at the centre of an international search effort since it set sail from Benin two weeks ago.

An official of the United Nations children's fund, Unicef, who boarded the boat told the BBC there were some children on board but that their status was not clear.

The ship's manifest states that only seven of those on board are children.

International arrest warrants had been issued for the crew of the Etireno on suspicion that they were smuggling children to work as slave labourers.

But a government minister in Benin is now suggesting the authorities may have been pursuing the wrong ship.

Social Protection Minister Ramatou Baba Moussa said the Etireno had been confused with a second ship, whose name and current location were unknown.

Both vessels had been turned away from Gabon after attempting to dock with illegal migrants on board, she added.

The white, 200-foot-long ferry pulled into Cotonou port shortly after 0100 BST.

Dozens of women, a few men and a handful of children could be seen through the ship's passenger cabin windows.

Benin officials said they still needed to speak to the passengers and crew before they could explain the confusion about the suspected slaves' whereabouts.

Despite international efforts to curb the trade, child slavery persists in West and Central Africa.

Human rights activists say the selling of children into slavery is still quite common in impoverished Benin, although it is officially banned.

They say parents are often tempted to sell their children for as little as $15 in the hope that they may find work in richer West African states, usually on cocoa and coffee plantations.

Thousands of children between the ages of nine and 12 are thought to work on plantations in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer.

Anti-child labour campaigners say they are forced to work long hours, and are frequently subjected to physical and sexual abuse.

-- Anonymous, April 16, 2001

Answers

No Child Slaves Found on Ship

by GLENN McKENZIE Associated Press Writer

COTONOU, Benin (AP) -- After days of searching, officials boarded a ship suspected of transporting scores of child slaves from this West African country early Tuesday but found no clear sign of unaccompanied children.

A government minister said there has been a mix-up, and that another unidentified vessel is the slave ship. But U.N. officials called for caution, saying a government investigation was necessary to discover the truth.

U.N. and local officials originally thought the Nigerian-registered MV Etireno left Benin with the children. Social Protection Minister Ramatou Baba Moussa said the returning ship may have been confused with a second ship, whose name and location remain a mystery. She said it was not known whether any unaccompanied children were on board the Etireno, although two minibus loads of children were taken from the ship to a local shelter.

U.N. officials in Cotonou earlier speculated whether the Etireno's captain, a Nigerian with a criminal past, could have thrown his human cargo overboard. After the ship's arrival, the same officials said the truth would probably not be known until the government finished an investigation, including interviews with the passengers and crew.

''I don't know what to think,'' said Nicolas Pron, a senior official with the U.N. children's fund in Benin. ''My main concern is that the kids are here and safe, and we will hear if that is the case.''

Benin and U.N. officials said port authorities in both Gabon and Cameroon had reported turning away a ship with 100 to 250 child slaves aboard.

Despite international efforts to stamp out child trafficking, it remains a serious problem in West and Central Africa, where desperately poor parents are sometimes willing to give up their children for as little as $14 to smuggling rings that promise to educate them and find them jobs.

Boys are then typically resold to cotton and cocoa plantations for as much as $340 in countries such as Gabon and Ivory Coast. Girls often end up as domestic workers or prostitutes.

Benin, a small country of 6 million people, has a history of slave trading. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was known as the Slave Coast for its role as a center of the trans-Atlantic trade.

The Etireno, a white, 200-foot-long ferry, pulled into Cotonou port shortly after 1 a.m., as Cabinet ministers, police, soldiers, journalists and U.N. employees crowded the dockside.

Dozens of women, a few men and a handful of children could be seen through the ship's passenger cabin windows, from which laundry was hanging inside, as the boat's Nigerian crew barked orders in English.

Journalists who boarded the ship found nervous and exhausted passengers who said no child slaves had been on the ship. Some appeared frightened.

The vessel's 40-year-old Nigerian captain, Lawrence Onome, echoed their denials.

''I have not committed any offense that will warrant my arrest,'' Onome said. ''I am not into child slavery. They can't prove it. It is one thing to say and one thing to prove.''

Moussa said the Etireno left the commercial capital, Cotonou, clandestinely more than a week ago. It was now returning with an unknown number of passengers -- but no unaccompanied children -- who had been refused entry in Gabon because they did not have the necessary travel documents, she said.

Some passengers said they were beaten by Gabonese police. ''They whipped me here,'' said 28-year-old Sofia Yawa, a Benin citizen, pointing to her breasts. ''And they took my money.''

A second ship arrived in Gabon at about the same time with about 250 passengers on board, possibly accounting for the reports of between 100-250 victims of child traffickers, she said.

On Thursday, the Etireno was refused port in Douala, Cameroon, according to U.N. and Benin officials.

On Tuesday, both UNICEF and the Benin government were investigating rumors one of the ships had docked in Equatorial Guinea, a small Central African country wedged between Cameroon and Gabon.

Benin initially issued arrest warrants for the Etireno's Nigerian owner, captain and crew as well as for three Benin businessmen. The status of those warrants was uncertain on Tuesday.

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2001

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/107/world/Officials_puzzled_whether_sh ip:.shtml

Officials puzzled whether ship carried child slaves

By Glenn Mckenzie, Associated Press, 4/17/2001 13:50

COTONOU, Benin (AP) Puzzled authorities tried to determine whether a ferry that pulled into port Tuesday was a ship suspected of smuggling child slaves that was believed wandering for days in Africa's Gulf of Guinea. The arriving ship carried passengers, including dozens of unaccompanied children.

The U.N. children's fund kept up an alert for the possibility that there was a second ship actually carrying the slaves that might try to dock somewhere along the western African coast.

''We have asked our offices in Malabo and elsewhere in the region to remain vigilant and not to demobilize,'' said Zachary Adams, UNICEF official in Cotonou, Benin's commercial capital. Malabo is the capital of nearby Equatorial Guinea.

''A boat has arrived here in Cotonou and we have no details of another, but we have to be prepared for the possibility.''

The 200-foot-long ferry that arrived in Cotonou bore the name of the vessel that officials had been hunting the Etireno but it appeared freshly painted white, with the signs of another name, ''NORDBY,'' still visible underneath. The captain said the name was changed in 1999.

Among the passengers mostly women with a few men 43 unaccompanied children were found on the boat and were taken to two children's shelters, where they were fed and allowed to rest ahead of questioning.

It was not clear how the children got onto the ship. It could not be ruled out that they were being smuggled into slavery, said Alfonso Gonzalez Jaggli, of the Men of the Earth charity, which runs one of the homes. ''How can we explain the presence of 43 children here?'' Jaggli told Associated Press Television News. ''It is not possible to clear up the question of trafficking at this time.'' He said the children were hungry but healthy.

An anxious search had begun Thursday, when it was reported that the Nigerian-registered MV Etireno had clandestinely slipped out of Cotonou with 100-250 children on board being smuggled into slavery. It was reportedly wandering in the Gulf of Guinea for days after being turned away from ports in Gabon and Cameroon.

The ferry pulled into Cotonou shortly after 1 a.m. with a crowd of Cabinet ministers, soldiers, police, journalists waiting. It was found to be carrying women and children and a few men.

Social Protection Minister Ramatou Baba Moussa produced a copy of the handwritten manifest from the ship that arrived. It listed 139 names, including seven children. The unaccompanied children were apparently not listed.

The passengers, nervous and exhausted, said no child slaves had been aboard, as did the vessel's 40-year-old Nigerian captain, Lawrence Onome. ''I have not committed any offense that will warrant my arrest,'' Onome said. ''I am not into child slavery, they can't prove it. It is one thing to say, and one thing to prove.''

''I don't know what to think,'' said Nicolas Pron, a senior UNICEF official in Benin.

Passengers and crew on the arriving ferry told journalists that the vessel left Benin on March 27 and arrived in Gabon's capital, Libreville, April 2. But authorities in Gabon detained the boat and its passengers, who were taken onshore by canoes for four days, apparently because they did not have proper documents. The boat left Gabon April 6 for Douala in Cameroon, where it arrived April 12, passengers and crew said.

Benin and U.N. officials said port authorities in both Gabon and Cameroon had reported turning away a ship with anything from 100 to 250 suspected child slaves aboard. It was believed that the smugglers had been planning to sell the children as unpaid domestic or plantation workers in Gabon, a relatively prosperous country southeast of Benin.

Benin initially issued arrest warrants for the Etireno's Nigerian owner, captain and crew as well as for three Benin businessmen. U.N. officials in Cotonou earlier speculated that the captain could have thrown his human cargo overboard. It was not known if Onome, the captain on the ferry, was the captain listed in the warrant.

Benin, a small country of 6 million people, has a history of slave trading. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was known as the Slave Coast for its role as a center of the trans-Atlantic trade.

Despite efforts to stamp out child-trafficking, it remains a serious problem in West and Central Africa, where desperately poor parents are sometimes willing to give up their children for as little as $14 to smuggling rings that promise to educate them and find them jobs.

Boys are then typically resold to cotton and cocoa plantations for as much as $340 in countries like Gabon and Ivory Coast. Girls often end up as domestic workers or prostitutes.

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001