West Africa's child slavery

The practice of trafficking in young children, selling them into bondage, is widespread along the coast of West Africa. Frustrated human rights groups say that it is now on a scale almost comparable to that of the slave trade 200 years ago.

International efforts to stamp it out have been thwarted by official indifference, poverty, corruption and an apathetic acceptance of a practice that has been going on for centuries.

It is only when a particularly cruel example draws international attention to the trade, as has now happened, that governments feel obliged to investigate this trafficking in children.

Only by linking development loans and trade to a ban on slavery can outsiders force a change and consumers who buy the cotton and cocoa can also make this a condition of trade.

But only when poverty is lightened, laws enforced and culture changed will West Africa's old and criminal trade in children be eradicated.

-- The Times, London