Against all odds, teens chase elusive African dream

THE three Ceesay brothers left their parents' impoverished peanut farm in rural Gambia and headed to the capital Banjul to get their passports. That was their first time in a city.

A day later, they boarded a plane for Nigeria. "I wish I could tell my mother about the sky," says 14-year-old Sulayman, the youngest of the three Ceesays, who spent most of the six-hour flight staring wide-eyed out the airplane window. "I cried when my mother kissed me goodbye," he admits, "but I told her I would find a diamond and buy her a house some day. And I will too."

The following day – dizzy from the flight and holding on for dear life to the railings of a contraption they were told was called an escalator – they descended into the city of all African cities, Lagos. It was there, explained the teenagers, in the concrete jungle of 13 million people, that they would begin to seek their fortune.

There are millions of young, poor, uneducated Africans just like the Ceesay brothers, traversing this continent looking for the one place – any place – where they might find work. No comprehensive data exists on the magnitude of child migration and labor, but the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that in Nigeria alone, about 12 million children under the age of 15 are on the move, out of school, and working for a pittance. Worldwide, the ILO estimates there are some 250 million child laborers, more than half of whom work full time, every day, all year round.

Many of these children are lured across borders or into cities by unscrupulous syndicates specializing in child trafficking and prostitution. Some are sent off by desperate families, and others still are simply following their dreams. The more fortunate ones may find menial labor as waiters, cleaners, car washers, bus touts, or domestic servants. Others will end up selling chewing gum, apples, or rolls of toilet paper at street corners, sleeping in filthy shacks or on the pavement.

At immigration in the Lagos airport, the Ceesays encounter their first hurdle. They can not fill out the entry forms. Completely illiterate, only the eldest, 16-year-old Bakoreh, knows how to sign his name. "But where we are going this will not be too important," says middle brother Salimou defensively, "... because we are not staying here. We are going to the diamond fields of Angola."

The plan, as outlined with great enthusiasm, words toppling over one another, is to work in Lagos for a few weeks "or even months," earn the money needed for passage to Angola, and then spend the next few years getting rich. Their parents had saved money for two years to enable the boys to make the trip to Lagos. Now the brothers are on their own. Between them they have nothing but $20, "the plan," and a great deal of hope.

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