
Akosiwa, 12 Dogbo, Benin
When Akosiwa was 3, her father sold her to a distant cousin who promised to give her an education, clothes and shoes. Instead, she worked in servitude 12 hours a day and went to bed hungry every night. Eight years later, she returned to her family and enrolled in a program to educate girls who have been trafficked. She is the only 12-year-old in a classroom full of children half her age. “I love all my subjects,” she says. “I get the highest marks in the class because I study the hardest.