Last Updated on June 12, 2021 by themigrationnews
Azali is a 2018 Ghanaian drama movie directed by Kwabena Gyansah. The film is based on a true story of the lived experiences of a girl named Amina. The movie narrates the story of Amina, a 14-year-old girl exiled from Tamale, her rural home village in Northern Ghana to avoid an arranged marriage. Amina plunges into prostitution and poverty in the slums of Accra. Although she rejected the idea of sex work during her initial days in Accra (the capital of Ghana), Amina was lured into it by a friend and yielded in because of the situation of destitution she found herself in. Overall, the movie highlights the challenges faced by young girls in the community in question, particularly forced for arranged marriages and child labor.
It all started when the Amina’s grandmother attempted to force her to marry an old man from the village to become her fourth wife. Her mother rejected the proposition. However, Amina and her mother found themselves in complicated situation because all the elderly women of the village wanted Amina to accept the arranged marriage. And because of the matriarchal nature of the community from which Amina hailed, older women had more decision-making power. This forced Amina’s mother to accept an offer from a woman who came to recruit the children of the village to place them in odd jobs in Accra. In the movie, the children never worked but they were trafficked. She accepted the offer as an opportunity to exile Amina and thus avoid the forced marriage. In the process, however, Amina’s mother had also accepted a deplorable solution that intended to force Amina into child labor. Indeed, this woman abused the parent’s trust because she was a child trafficker.
On the day they left Tamale, the truck carrying the children to Accra for child labor was intercepted by the police before it arrived in Accra. As a result, Amina was placed in a children’s home in Bawku, northern Ghana. This is how she met Seidu, a young man with whom she fled from the children’s home to Accra. Fleeing into exile was a way for Amina to protect herself from child marriage. In Accra, Seidu and Amina lived together. Seidu was resourceful and loved working. Amina could not keep her street vendor job because she was lazy. Seidu was recruited for another job, and they broke up. Amina was therefore alone and had to pay the rent on her own. She became a tenant in the house of a lady to whom she had to pay a daily sum. On several occasions, she was threatened with eviction because she could not pay the money. Many times, Amina rejected offers by Seidu’s friends to work as a sex worker. She wanted to earn her life with dignity. A very pious girl, she devoted herself to prayer and remained attached to her religious convictions. Like many vulnerable children worldwide who are often taken advantage of and exploited, Amina was caught up in a situation of destitution and ended up yielding to the way of life of some suburban girls. This way of life involved indulging in sex work for survival. A friend of hers in Accra lured her into prostitution to make money for survival and she accepted. Everything changed when Amina hurt a man and tried to flee the area before being raped by the employer of Seidu.
Back in her home village, Amina’s mother was worried. Her uncle Akatork, a lazy man, travelled to Accra to find Amina but met an old acquaintance and forgot his primary mission, telling himself that Amina is fine. One of the interesting aspects of the film is Amina’s resilience and kindness. Despite her vulnerability in Accra, she always wanted to keep her dignity and her parental values. She wished for a better future for herself and Seibu. Despite her young age, she had the maturity to know what is right and wrong in the absence of her family members. Her attachment to her native village is extraordinary. “I want to go back home,” Amina frequently told herself.
Amina did not want to get involved in sex work, but the suffering she endured motivated her to become a sex worker. Seidu’s involvement in illicit drug trafficking and alcohol abuse was also motivated by the desire to integrate to earn his living. “I have to integrate in the group; otherwise, they will evict me,” he said to Amina, who blamed him for his behavior.
The film does more than depicting telling narrative of a young girl who leads a difficult life in Accra. It also enables one to grasp the socio-economic realities of developing countries, and we can cite, among others: the difficult life led by those who live in the countryside, the vulnerability of young people who live in the slums, employability in the informal economy, corruption, and institutional impunity, and so forth.
Indeed, one of the film’s most beautiful moments is the realization of Amina’s dream of returning to her native village to reunite with her family. Akartok (Amina’s uncle), with the help of Joan, his old acquaintance, later found Amina. Despite the disagreement with her mother when she left Tamale for Accra, they embraced each other with love and tenderness upon the return of the exile.
This film also allows us to understand the complex abuses specifically child labor, trafficking, and sexual exploitation. We can understand that many aspects of the violations are interrelated. Children who come from low-income families are very vulnerable, parents can be unconsciously involved in the trafficking of their children. People may exploit children without the victims realizing it. The supposed custodians who should fight to end these abuses can also be the preparators of such crimes.
Finally, everyone should watch this film, especially the stakeholders involved in eradicating child labor and sexual exploitation. The movie highlights various aspects of child labor. For example, stakeholders must avoid a globalized and dominant advocacy narratives approach. Children in different localities face different realities which require different approaches suitable to each different case. Therefore, it is imperative to listen to victims’ voices and localized experiences to make the best policies.
Jean Edwidge Petit-frère is currently finishing a master’s degree in International Migrations with a focus on actors and institutions of migration, reception, and international solidarity in France. He is the Head of Research at The HAITI Migration group, an organization whose mission is to contribute to better migration policy development in Haiti.