Child Migration to Island Communities, Along the Volta Lake of Ghana

Abstract

Child migration has existed for several decades globally and Ghana is of no exception. Even though this phenomenon has received research attention and has become one of the most researched areas in Ghana, most of the studies have largely focused on child rural-urban migration and their activities and experiences in the major cities of Ghana. It is against this background that, this study sought to find out how child migrants in some Island communities in the Volta Region of Ghana get to their destination, the experiences they go through and the effects it has on the child migrant in relation to their education. The study used a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches involving 60 respondents which included rescued child migrants, teachers, biological parents who responded to questionnaires and in-depth interviews for data collection for the study. SPSS was used to descriptively analyse the data and the results were presented in tables and figure. The study found that the migrant children are engaged in fishing and cattle herding. Although the initial monetary token given to the parents according to most mothers was used as seed money for their petty trading and as a means for the biological parents to solve their own economic and social challenges, the more than half of rescued child migrants described their condition with their foster parents as bad due to the maltreatment they received. With regards to education, most of the children said there were no schools on the islands. Also, the study shows that rescued child migrants attach seriousness to learning at both study areas. The study on child migration found out that, all the forms of work performed by these child migrants interfere with their education and development. The kind of work that, the child migrants are engaged in prevents them from pursuing their education, makes them to be treated like slaves, deprives them of good nutrition, adequate rest and exposes them to being beaten by foster parents. These adverse kinds of conditions child migrants are exposed to, should be discouraged.