CASE STUDY: SÉLOM S.,AGE THIRTEEN

Sélom S.'s mother died in 1988, and his father died in 1994. Three years before his father died, Sélom stopped going to school. He continued living with his two younger brothers and his older brother, a mechanic.

One day, an older man asked Sélom if he wanted to go to Nigeria. The man said if he went with him, he would teach him a trade and give him a bicycle, a radio and batteries. He said that if Sélom wanted, he could sell the bicycle and radio and pay for school. Sélom decided to go, but he didn't say anything to his older brother. He knew that if he had asked for permission, his brother would have refused.

The man told Sélom to meet him at Balanka, a village near the Benin border, at night. When he got there, Sélom saw that there were many other boys there as well. The man told all the boys to get into a truck, and they drove to the border of Togo and Benin. At the border, the man ordered the boys to get out of the truck and pass through the bushes, one by one, on foot. Once across the border, the boys got back into the truck and drove for three days. The truck was packed full, and there was not enough food to go around.

When he arrived in Nigeria, Sélom was driven to the village of awo, near the city of ibadan. Two hours later, he was brought to a farm and told to go work in the fields. The man who brought him said that if he didn't work hard, he would not be able to eat. He added that he would find sélom work on many different farms, and that any wages would pay for Sélom's trip to Nigeria.

Sélom worked in Nigeria for eleven months, clearing fields and planting yam shoots into small hillocks. He worked from 5:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. every day, and slept outside in makeshift huts. Sometimes he was forced to use machetes to cut tree branches. Once he nearly cut his finger off, and his hand was completely swollen after 2 days. When he showed his boss the injury, his boss said, "That's nothing-you are too lazy to work."

After eleven months, Sélom's boss gave him a bicycle and told him to ride it home to Togo. The boss gave him three bowls of gari and 6,000 CFA (U.S.$9) and told him to share it with five other boys. On the route from Nigeria to Benin, Sélom and the other boys had to bribe soldiers with 100-200 CFA (U.S.0.15¢-0.30¢) to let them pass. Sometimes they were stopped by bandits, who demanded 500 CFA (U.S. 0.75¢) or forced them to sell their radios for a low price. They slept in fields or bushes, and when they got hungry they uprooted raw cassava from the fields.

After four days, Sélom made it back to Togo. Now his brother is looking after him, and sometimes he helps his brother fix cars. He can't afford to go to school. If he finds work in a field somewhere, he takes it.