Psychological impact of child trafficking on trafficked children and their families in Togo

Abstract

Background: Few researches have been made in sub-Saharan Africa to evaluate psychosocial impact of child trafficking. The current study’s objective is to examine the psychological impact of child trafficking on children victims of traffic and their families.Methods: It is a cross-sectional study across the whole Togo territory over 24 children returned from trafficking and the members of their families. The clinical interview and the projective test (Patte Noire) were used to collect the data with well detailed case studies.Results: The traffic of children brought psychological disorders, depressive reaction and post-traumatic stress amongst most of the children’s who were rescued or taken out of the traffic. Members of the family developed depressive reactions and self-guilt symptoms. The lack of adequate structures for an adapted follow up of the children’s returning from the traffic has been noted. Conclusions: Our results confirm previous works realized in other sociocultural contexts and suggest that a better support of children’s in specialized centers by psychologists, social workers or other specialized personnel would be best. Future longitudinal studies on a greater sample, in sub-Saharan Africa to assess the long term consequences of child trafficking over the whole family would be justified.