A Special Report: The Little Boy Oprah Couldn't Forget

0:00Through 25 seasons, 4 ,561 episodes, I believe the Oprah Winfrey Show is one of the greatest classrooms in the world. I really never thought of it that way. The aha moments, the breakthroughs, the LOLs, the connections, the occasional ugly cry. I miss him so terribly. I miss him every single minute. The moments that mattered. The eye-opening life lessons. Never allow them to take you somewhere else. I'm bringing them back. It's time to open the vault. I've personally chosen these classic episodes to share with you again. Every single person you ever will meet shares that common desire. They want to know, do you see me?

0:47Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you? You are listening to The Oprah Winfrey Show, the podcast. One of my favorite things to do every single Sunday is, before I do anything, come down in my pajamas, get the New York Times. About three months ago on a Sunday, I was in my pajamas, and I saw this front page story about a six-year-old child slave. His name is Mark. And I was haunted by this little boy's face since reading his story. I couldn't stop thinking about him. I couldn't stop thinking about the look in his eyes. The New York Times had a full-page picture of that little boy.

1:34And I called up my friends that day and said, have you seen the New York Times? Did you see the story about that little boy? I wanted to know how he was and what happened to him. I wanted to find him. So we sent Oprah show correspondent Lisa Ling to find this little boy. I couldn't forget.

1:56When I first got the assignment to go find Mark, I was shocked to learn the statistics about child slavery in Ghana. Children as young as four years old being sold by their own parents. Hi, Oprah. I'm in the West African country of Ghana, which is about the size of Oregon. And it's estimated that one in four children here work as child laborers. One of the most dangerous jobs for children here is working on the fishing boats. This is no life for a child.

2:32Seven days a week, 14 hours a day, thousands of children are ordered to risk their lives by paddling long distances, diving in freezing cold waters, and pulling up heavy nets.

2:48Many of them endure severe beatings and often survive on just one meal a day.

2:57It is such back-breaking labor, their bodies are severely overdeveloped for their young age. I traveled more than 7 ,000 miles to find Mark and also to investigate why this is happening. My guide would be Eric Piazza from the International Organization for Migration, or IOM. First, he took us to a small village to help us understand the problem. And so in that remote village, Lisa meets a father who talks candidly about selling his children. Right now they're assembling some of the parents, and then we can ask them why they sent their kids off in the first place. 59-year-old Napoleon is the father of 22 children.

3:43A lot of Americans will watch this and say, why do they keep having kids? When it doesn't come to me early. And now you are aware, I hope. And now I'm aware. Okay. With 22 kids, Napoleon had to figure out a way to support his family. When a fisherman offered to pay about$20 per child, Napoleon agreed to sell nine of them. I was the third man of the 22. Okay. Did they speak English? Yeah, never. Just two years ago, Napoleon's 14-year-old son never was working as a slave. How did the fishermen treat you in the village? They treated me very badly. Like, giving me food, giving me no clothes, and where to sleep is very difficult.

4:31Did the fishermen ever hurt you or beat you? Yes. How often?

4:48Most of these children are sent not knowing how to swim. You saw some of your friends drown? Yes. How many drowned? There's more than five. Really? Yeah. Neva and his eight brothers and sisters were rescued. Now, with help from the IOM, Napoleon can better support his family. Before he sent you, do you think your father knew how bad the conditions were? No. No? I don't think so. I believed Never and started to see this issue was much more complicated than parents just selling off their children. Never gave me hope. It's so incredible to see what can happen when a kid is given a chance. Look at Neva, he didn't speak a word of English two years ago, and now he's back here, and his English is awesome.

5:38Then we got an idea. We want to take you so you can show us, this is where I had to work, and this is where I slept. Could you help us with that? Yes. I'm surprised that he would agree to go back. I was surprised, too. If you think about it, he agreed to take us to the place where he was held captive. He was abused and he was forced to work. But there's, there's this, there was this wisdom about Never that was so impressive and he really wanted. He became very committed to taking us. So he's 14 as we see him on the tape. That's right. How old was he when he was sold for$20? He was 9 or 10 years old and he worked as a slave for two and a half years.

6:19So for years, fishermen have taken thousands of children far away from their homes to work as slaves. It's a brutal journey, and Lisa shows us what that journey is like. Since 2002, Eric's team has rescued over 600 fishing children from slavery in Ghana. They're strategizing because they're planning to rescue up to 25 children from the fishing villages. We're going to move from here up here, right up to Krati, here. Now, most of the children that you're trying to rescue are from what area? They are from central region here. So many of the children are trafficked all the way, hundreds of miles up to the north.

6:58Yeah, to this part of the country. It's probably hard for their parents to ever find them, huh? Yeah, it's very hard. Tomorrow, we set off on an actual rescue mission. It's nearly 6 o 'clock in the morning, and we are headed to the Lake Volta region. It's where the majority of child laborers are forced to live and work. Meanwhile, Neva is adapting to our lives quite well. He is eager to learn everything, including the UFC fight song.

7:30It's hard to believe he was living the life of a slave just two years ago. If we're lucky, we'll make it to the villages in ten hours. Let's just say I've had more comfortable car rides. We've been traveling for about four hours, and the rest of the road is really, really bumpy and so dusty we can barely see in front of us. So, you probably don't want to watch this, otherwise you might get sick. So right now we're waiting to board this ferry because we're going to these rather remote islands that don't have any roads, and that's where the fishermen and the boys base themselves. But even before we reach the islands, we see some of the boys.

8:13They work while their master watches. OK. OK. It's so interesting to watch the difference in demeanor between these kids who are just playing around and being silly and those kids who are working on the boat. Eric was just telling me that these are definitely trafficked kids. He said, look at them. They're not talking and they're completely expressionless. I was very sorry for them. The master is sitting and the small boy says, I pardon you. It's not good. Is that what you had to do? Yes. It was so hard to watch these little people working. It really seemed like they'd lost their childhood. We board the ferry and reach the island by night.

8:59Tomorrow, we take Neva back to the lake where he was a slave. And so what did they do when they saw Never? It was really interesting to watch them because we had bought Never new clothes, and here he was interacting with this foreign television crew. And I could see that they were looking at him with a little bit of envy and certainly curiosity. Despite the fact that, you know, there were all these foreigners, we were there, they were just transfixed by Never. Because he was well-dressed and he was eating potatoes and he was eating And these are kids that eat typically one meal a day. Yeah. And what are they eating?

9:37Are they eating that sort of that grain, granular mixture? Yeah, the corn, corn meal. Mealy meal, they call it. Mealy meal. I'm sure that many of you watching have also felt the same way. You read a story in the newspaper, and even after you put that paper down or you see a story on the news, you still can't stop thinking about the person. Has that happened to you? That's exactly what happened to me with this little boy. And we're going to find out what happened to Mark in a few moments, because I called up Lisa Ling to say, can you go find this boy? But first, Lisa and 14-year-old Never, a former slave, take us to the lake to show us what life is like for these children, like Mark, sold into labor by their own parents for as little as$20.

10:18Lisa says she was even astounded. Lake Volta region, 4 a.m. It's crazy. This happens seven days a week, and these boys are essentially on the lake by 4.30 not having eaten any breakfast. In the pitch dark, four boys with no shoes and no life preservers make their way onto the lake. It's cold. The only reason we can see them is because of our camera light. I'm in utter disbelief that these little children venture out onto the lake in the black of night. Turn that light off for a second. I mean, how can they say anything to do it when it's this dark? I don't think they do when it's this dark. But the reality is they always do.

11:03It's the beginning of another long and difficult day.

11:11Did you have to go out in the dark every single day? Yeah, yeah. And sometimes would you have to dive? Yeah. At night? How could you see anything? It is no good, Akka. It is dangerous. Every time this boy goes underwater, I fear he might get stuck in the nets and not come back up.

11:37Most adults would find this job physically demanding, yet I saw children, some as young as four, working, even while sick. It's just after 6 a.m. and the sun is just now starting to come up. The boys have been on the lake since it was pitch black. and I was just thinking about what it might be like to have a little seven-year-old boy out there. Even for us in this bigger boat, it was pretty challenging to navigate. While the boys work on the lake, Eric educates villagers on the dangers of child fishing. Today, with Nevers' help, he spreads his simple yet powerful message. Let the fishing children go.

12:19Let the fishing children go. This fisherman agrees to release two children. When we return to the lake, we see the young boys we followed earlier in the day. Look at how hard they're paddling. Where's the master? The master is sleeping at home. The master's sleeping at home, huh? Something happens. Away from their master, the boys candidly share what their lives are like. They say that they eat once a day at 7 in the morning, and they don't eat until 7 the next day. And they're routinely beaten. and they say their master never even comes to fish with him. All four boys are part of a group Eric plans to rescue, but there's been a tragic development.

12:59So all of these boys think they're going to be rescued, but you've just learned otherwise? Wow. So how old are the boys? They range in age. So most of the boys are sold very young, between four and seven or eight, but they stay with the fishermen sometimes for years. In fact, the eldest of those four boys had been away from his family for six years. And keep in mind that these... they get no education. So, you know... So how was never... How did Never manage to speak English? He learned English after he was rescued. It had only been two years... Since he was rescued. ...and his English was so incredible.

13:37And that's what really inspired me, that if you give a child a chance, give them the opportunity to be educated, they...they learned so quickly. Yeah, yeah. So Lisa and her team are allowed to bring cameras along on a rescue mission. What were the fishermen saying? That they know that you're there to film them, and they have these children as slaves. So what are they saying when they see you with the crew? Right. Well, it's really important. I want to be clear that we don't want to demonize the fishermen, because many of the fishermen were fishing children themselves. This has been going on in Ghana for decades.

14:12It's really part of the culture. And so very often Eric and the team from the IOM and the Ghanaian government, they go and they say, you know, you need to stop buying these children and forcing them to work. And they say, well, we used to work as fishing children ourselves. And Eric says, that doesn't make it right. So the challenge really is it's changing the culture. So Lisa and her team are allowed to bring cameras along on a rescue mission. Watch what happens as they attempt to set these children free. In his hand, Eric holds the list of 25 children the International Organization for Migration is hoping to rescue.

14:49Part of the rescue includes convincing the fishermen to let the kids go. And when these guys come into the communities, they're often very persuasive. But here's a fisherman here who apparently has four kids, and he's refusing to let them go.

15:08It's a frustrating process, but we start having better luck. So their masters have allowed these four children to go home. I can only imagine what's going through their minds right now. It's an emotional scene watching these children who were rescued just minutes ago. I'm watching this little boy who eats one meal a day, like a meager meal first thing in the morning and then doesn't eat until the next morning. and he has, since we've been sitting here, inhaled so much food and he just won't stop eating. I was cleaning up everyone's plate, but they won't give me their plate back because they still want to eat more.

15:48Later in the day, we find out we're only able to rescue two of the four boys we'd met that morning. It's after 5 p.m. and the two eldest boys are still out on the lake pulling nets in.

16:05Already this one's smiling a lot. He wasn't smiling at all earlier. It's a familiar scene for Never. I asked him to take me back to the day when he was rescued. And what was that day like for you? Yeah. I feel very happy. They gave us food. They gave us clothes, new clothes. What do you think is going on in their minds right now? I think they were very happy. Yeah, I do it. I've been there, mine. That much is obvious. I just kept thinking, you are finally free. After convincing many of the fishermen to let them go, the kids are loaded onto this bus. Suddenly, they are children again. We are young, I see.

16:50We are young, I see. We are young, I see. We head back to Accra, Ghana's capital. OK, so on the list there were 25 kids, and IOM rescued 21 of the 25. The ferry to freedom. The thing that I just can't stop thinking about is that these kids haven't seen their parents in four or five years. And when they're reunited, many of them probably won't even recognize their parents or remember what they look like at all. What was that like for you? It was incredible. Yeah. It was interesting to watch the brotherhood and the relationships that they established with each other. Because the four boys that we had been following, none of them were biological siblings.

17:36But when you ask them who this is, who is this? They say, my brother. My brother, yeah. It's the only family they have. So what happened to the two boys who were left behind? Well, the fisherman was promising to rescue them, and I'm very happy to report that last weekend, the two boys were rescued as well. Wow.

17:56I really believe that a lot of the fishermen really do want to release the boys. Once they are educated about how... really what it does to the children, they are inclined to do it. But their business depends on it. They know because they've been, some of them have been, so they know what it's done to them. But how do you convince them? Just through money? Well, as you just saw, the process... the rescue process involves a lot of negotiation. The fishermen have to be persuaded to let the boys go. And initially... And how are they persuaded? With money? Well, the IOM and the government say that they will provide the fishermen with new tools to make the fishing process easier so they don't have to use child labor.

18:36So initially, very often, they'll say, well, we'll let...we will let the boys go. But then when the IOM guys get there, they say, well, this will really hurt my business, so maybe we'll let a couple of them go. Okay.

18:52Rescuing children from slavery is just the beginning. Now the emotional and difficult part will be the reunion with the people who sold them. Their own parents sold them. We head to Ghana's central region where many of the fishing children come from. So we're gonna look for his mom now. Yeah. Okay. Let's go try and find her. Let's go try and find her. With limited phone access, we just start asking around. One of the things that Eric does as soon as he rescues a kid is takes a photograph of them. So he goes around to the villages and says, does this look like your child? Because many of them probably don't even recognize their kid anymore.

19:30Once they're rescued, you can't exactly drop a kid back off into their villages because the parents are the very ones who gave the children up in the first place. So they have to be educated about the fact that sending kids to these villages is wrong. We finally tracked down 14-year-old Kakra's mom. So Eric, what's the situation with Kakarot's parents? The mother was saying that Kakarot's father was sick, very sick, at the point of dying. He needs some money to take the father to the hospital. So while he was looking for money, the fisherman came to town that he wanted the children to go and work with him.

20:05This woman sold three of her children after her husband died, including Kwao, when he was only four years old. She says she had no other way to support her family. So how much money did she get for sending her three children out?

20:37After learning about the dangerous conditions, I could see this mother was embarrassed and full of regret. While Eric meets with parents, the rescued children are placed in this rehabilitation center where they're taken care of. I'm so happy. Are these the same children we met the other day? Yeah. Yes? Look at this one. Are you having enough to eat? Do you have enough bananas? Just two days after the rescue, I'm overwhelmed by the change I see in them. If you're happy and you do, and you're ready to watch the show, if you're happy and you do, stop your feet. Some of their parents have come to see them, and keep in mind that some of these kids haven't seen their parents in years.

21:21So in a minute, their parents are going to be brought into the classroom, and we'll see what happens. When they first see their parents, they seem excited, but suddenly things change. Quao, who hasn't seen his mother in three years, refuses to go to her. He's angry. It's such a strange process, because these kids, when they first see the parent, they just light up, and then when they have a moment to process, I think a lot of them realize that they don't really know their parent anymore. I mean, Kakra hasn't seen his parents for over three years. Um, Kuo, the little boy, hasn't seen his mother for three years, and she obviously, you know, harbors some resentment toward her.

22:05Um, you know, these are the people who gave these kids up. My trip ends on a bittersweet note, but I find comfort in knowing that, like never, these children can have a better tomorrow. So, the parents' reactions to their children, you said that they were embarrassed, or...? Yeah, I truly don't believe that the parents had any idea of how their child was living. They are promised not only money, but the fishermen promise that they'll take care of the kids. And as you saw, the journey, it takes more than 10 hours on very bumpy roads to get there. We're talking about people who don't have a lot of resources.

22:42So they can't exactly, you know, take a road trip and go visit their kids, and communication is very limited. So they really just don't know. And I hear parents sometimes sell their children more than once. They do. It doesn't happen as often, but certainly even after the process of rehabilitation, they will sometimes send the kids back. The kids will stay in the center for two months where they will get basic education. They'll learn about... That's how they never learn to speak English. That's right. Hygiene and nutrition and so on. And then they'll be reunited with their parents. And the parents will also be educated as well.