DHL staff Charles Dawson-Amoah has started a 1000 mile journey from Freetown yesterday to Accra to raise awareness on Child trafficking that is presently a hot debate around the world.
In his short address, to journalists at the DHL Office last Saturday said he is embarking on this journey because of a nine year old girl from Sierra Leone that was rescued from a brothel.
Charles said this incident has had a telling effect on him as well as when he was in the military and seeing children being innocent victims.
The parents he said only knows that their children are with foster parents and cannot see their children but will have opportunity to talk to them as well as receiving monies monthly. “These children after out living their usefulness in the brothel will be killed and their bodies dumped with no records because they entered the UK with false documents” Charles said.
Charles who too has a child is deeply disturbed with such situation and decided to raise such awareness by working 50 miles a day for 20 days through Liberia, Ivory Coast and then Accra.
He said he wants to raise such awareness as that will be his own contribution to eradicate these inhuman act that are done by respected men in society.
As a worker of DHL, he has the full support of his office as well as Save the Children UK to raise the awareness. Every village he stops over, he will use the opportunity to sensitize them about child trafficking. He said adoption is legal and some are genuine whilst others are just using these children to be sex slaves. “We should scrutinize the people as well as their organization to make sure they are genuine as well as getting information from our foreign embassies to advice us if the adoption will be genuine.
Charles, who lives in Hatfield, was born in a small town called Cape Coast about 80 miles from Accra. He has two brothers and three sisters.
After finishing his education he worked for DHL in Ghana before moving to the UK and joining the British Army in 2002.
He knows what is suffering for African children and believes poverty and societal morals are the reason for child trafficking in the world.
The managing Director of DHL Sierra Leone Basil Akinbinu said through this campaign that is Charles’ initiative: “We are clearly excited to offer to offer our total support.” He said the campaign underscores one of the cherished corporate values of DHL to accept social responsibilities by promoting the goals that generate benefits for the communities they operate.
Also he said the campaign will give voice to the voiceless and the most vulnerable but ironically the future of the society. He concluded by saying such initiative will be supported by all and bring all stakeholders to seriously address the issue of child trafficking particularly in West Africa.
By Austin Thomas
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