[Stop-traffic] News/Benin: Boys who labored in Nigeria return home

[Melanie Orhant]

Boys who labored in Nigeria return home
By Virgile Ahissou and Glenn McKenzie
The Associated Press, October 16, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37744-2003Oct16.html



Excerpt:

COTONOU, Benin (AP) -- Their bodies scarred by beatings and their 
hands callused from breaking rocks, 74 boys as young as 4 received 
medical treatment Thursday after their rescue from Nigerian granite 
quarries where they were forced to work.

Nigerian police rescued the boys Wednesday and repatriated them to 
Benin under an accord between the two nations on child trafficking 
and other cross-border crimes.

Following their rescue - only the second of its kind in West Africa - 
the children told authorities that over the previous three months at 
least 13 other boys died, succumbing to exhaustion, disease, hunger 
and abuse, Nigerian police and aid workers said.