By Romie Avivi Stuhl

BBC’s Africa Eye documentary titled The Night They Came for Our Children exposed how the International Justice Mission (IJM), a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) aimed at freeing children from “modern day slavery”, forcefully and wrongfully removed children from their families.

As part of my work at the Finder, I joined my coworker Christabel for an exclusive screening of the film yesterday. A discussion with two members of parliament, a researcher and an anonymous investigative journalist followed the screening.

The post-film discussion touched on the importance for Ghanaians to tell their stories and for NGOs to work with locals to understand cultural nuances. I felt very lucky to be in the room, although a little weird being the only white person in a black-centered discussion focused on negative American intervention.

The researcher on the panel, Dr. Samuel Okyere, said that interventions are often more pervasive in Ghana’s part of the world.

He talked about unaddressed child exploitation in the United States, and how even in Ghana child-trafficking is only addressed in its most remote regions. According to him, this leads to people being unaware of “the bad in the process of the good” which allows organizations to continue to traumatize people.

I think the United States often likes to intervene in, what they view as, other countries’ problems, but often forget about their own issues. And the film highlighted for me something I already knew — good intentions aren’t enough, and they don’t always lead to good outcomes.

I highly recommend you watch The Night They Came for Our Children to learn more about IJM, anti child trafficking efforts in Ghana and the complexity of the issue. You can also read the article I wrote with Christabel below.