Ten-year-old Joseph gets up at 5 o'clock every morning to go to work. He doesn't go to school. Like a dozen other children who work with him under the orders of his master, a Lake Volta fisherman in Ghana, Joseph is a child slave. Poverty forced his parents to sell him. As with Felix, another child slave, his work is exhausting: rowing, diving into the murky waters of the artificial lake to release the nets, to little avail because the lake has less fish today than during the first years after the construction of the dam. At the Yegi market, where the fishermen sell their catch, the slave children keep a low profile. The Ghanaian government has decided to introduce legislation outlawing the selling and forced labor of children. Local chiefs relay it in the field, but it is an international organization, the OIM (Organization for International Migrations) that is buying back children in search of their families. When it is impossible to find the family of a former child slave, the OIM takes charge of his schooling and subsistence. But a child costs $40 a head, which is high for Ghana. Felix will be bought back but Joseph will remain with the fisherman.



Director : Daniel Grandclément
Writer : Daniel Grandclément
Camera : Jérôme Roguez
Sound : Eric Rey
Editing : Simon Rolin

Production : DGP,
69, rue Louise Michel,
92300 Levallois Perret, France
Tél : +33 (0)1 4029 4378
Email : grandclement@yahoo.com

Sales : France Télévisions Distribution,
Immeuble Le Barjac, 1, boulevard Victor,
75015 Paris, France
Tél : +33 (0)1 5622 9000
Fax : +33 (0)1 5622 9060
Email : ftdi.sales@francetv.com

Format: HD Cam - 16/9. Colour
Running time: 35 min
Year of production: 2006


Aspects of French Production