IJM Survivor Story: Cyril*

Cyril* was nine years old when he left his home and went to live on Lake Volta. He remembers a woman from his community visiting his family, sharing stories about a man looking for boys to come work for him. He promised if Cyril joined them, he would be sent to school. Trusting the woman, Cyril and his mother decided he should go.

Cyril arrived at his new home in the night. They had travelled by boat to a remote and unfamiliar area. He climbed out of the boat and met the man he would work for, following him to his home. Cyril would soon learn that this man would not provide the opportunity he had promised. Instead, he was a slave owner recruiting children for harsh physical labor on Lake Volta.

Life on Lake Volta

For five years, Cyril would be forced to risk his life casting nets on the lake and working on a farm. He worked alongside other children who had also been trafficked—two of whom, Godwin and Kodzo*, would become like brothers to him. In solidarity, they suffered the violence and exploitation together.

Cyril remembers their early hours of labor: “We [would] wake up at 4:00 am at dawn to go and pull out the nets from the river.”

Out on the water, nets sometimes snagged on rocks or sticks. Cyril would slip under the water’s surface to try and free the rope before he ran out of air. Once the net filled with fish, they would empty it on the shore and immediately return to the water, to recast the nets and do it all again. Between the lake and the farm, the day was filled with work. Nights would end as late as 1:00 am, allowing only three or four hours of sleep before the next day began.

The conditions were not safe; Cyril had multiple experiences where he worried he would drown. On one such occasion, he struggled under a large stick beneath the water’s surface. When he finally broke free, the stick punctured him and wounded him badly. As he climbed back into the boat, he realized the others in the boat were laughing at him.

“I told them that something really bad happened to me but they were not listening to me,” he recounts. The next time he was instructed to free a net hooked on a stick, he refused. The slave owner’s son beat Cyril severely.

This was not the first time Cyril had been beaten by this very man: the slave owner’s son, Ashon*. In fact, it was common for Ashon to beat the children.

“He usually beats us because he is older than us… when they instruct us and we are not able to do it the way [he] wants it to be done, that’s when they beat us for not doing it well.” If the children reported this to the slave owner, Ashon would beat them harder the next day.

One windy afternoon on the lake, Ashon was pitilessly attacking Cyril’s friend, Kodzo. Cyril’s job was to keep watch and provide direction as to which way the boat should go. He could feel Ashon’s anger rising, even as the winds around them raced with urgency. Suddenly, a wave lifted the boat, knocking Cyril into the lake. He thought Ashon would surely slow the boat, but he did not. He continued paddling on, and in the strong wind, the currents of the water pulled Cyril under.

“I could feel that I was going down into the water. I asked myself, is this how my life is going to end?”

Inside the boat, Kodzo had not forgotten his friend. “Climb, climb the boat! You will be safe,” he called to Cyril.

Despite the chaos of the situation, Kodzo’s calls gave him the courage he needed to fight his way back into the boat. Cyril collapsed into the boat, relieved to be alive.

Within moments, Ashon was shouting orders again. He told Cyril to return to the edge of the boat and give direction.

“I felt so sad for myself.” As the wind died down, Cyril and his friends were again hard at work as though nothing had happened.

For five years, this was Cyril’s life.

Rescue and Transformation

One day, out on a boat with Ashon, a man warned Ashon that police were coming to “catch children.” Ashon seemed unbothered, convinced the authorities would do nothing more than have a conversation with his father, the slave owner.

Cyril was not sure what to think. The police had come once before and taken away his friends Godwin and Kodzo, which the slave owner explained by saying that people wanted to arrest the children and use them for rituals. Cyril watched with fear as they drew closer and closer.

Suddenly, one of the men called out his name. Cyril froze. “They were not supposed to know my name... I [didn’t] understand why they [would] come out of the blue and mention my name.”

Finally, after they called out to him five times, Cyril responded. An officer took his hand and said to him, “Today I am taking you along, you are going with me.”

Cyril, still full of suspicion, went with the officer and his team. Then on the boat he saw his friend Godwin – Godwin who had gone away with the police when they came several months ago. A calm flooded Cyril at the sight of his friend. As he watched Godwin help direct the police to the children who had been trafficked, Cyril finally believed he was safe.

Before long, Cyril was reunited with Kodzo at a care home for children and found his friend transformed by the healing he had experienced  over the last several months. Cyril too began the long healing process with the help of IJM and staff at the aftercare shelter.

To this day, recounting his near-death experience is still emotional for Cyril, but he is not battling this trauma by himself. He has the support of clinical specialists and of friends like Kodzo and Godwin, who advocated for him when he thought he was alone.

Now, transformation is happening in Cyril’s life, too. Through IJM’s I Am Worthy training, Cyril and his peers in aftercare are learning about their self-worth and personal rights. Cyril is known as a leader in the care home where the children are learning and healing together as a community. He studies science in school and loves to play football. In the safety of freedom, he has room to discover his interests and build a future. An adamant believer in hope, Cyril has these words to share with children still on Lake Volta: “They should not be discouraged. When the right time comes, they will also be rescued just as I was rescued.”

*Pseudonym