The CNN Freedom Project is a year-long humanitarian news media campaign launched by

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

and

CNN International CNN International (CNNI, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel that is owned by CNN Global. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates with sister network CNN's national and inter ...

in 2011 to "end modern-day slavery" and related illegal practices, including

human trafficking Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...

. It was started on the initiative of CNN International's vice president

Tony Maddox Tony Maddox is a British journalist. He was executive vice president and managing director of CNN International from 2003 until May 2019. He previously worked at the BBC for 13 years as a reporter, news producer and news editor. In 2015 he w ...

, who was honored for this in 2015 by the

U.S. Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

as a

Trafficking in Persons Report Hero The Trafficking in Persons Report, or the TIP Report, is an annual report issued since 2001 by the U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. It ranks governments based on their perceived efforts to acknowledge ...

. In March 2019 its reporting on

child labor Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...

in fishing communities of

Lake Volta Lake Volta, the largest artificial reservoir in the world based on surface area, is contained behind the Akosombo Dam which generates a substantial amount of Ghana's electricity. It is completely within the country of Ghana and has a surface area ...

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

was criticized by the Ghanaian politician

Betty Mensah Betty Nana Efua Krosbi (also spelled Crosby and Krosby) Mensah, (born August 29, 1980) is a Ghanaian politician and the Member of Parliament for Afram Plains North constituency in the Eastern region of Ghana. She is a member of the National D ...

and the academic Samuel Okyere, who said CNN ignored that many children become self-sufficient fishermen in adulthood and can thus be described as

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

s rather than

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

References

External links

* {{CNN International shows Abolitionism CNN