Tomas, that was the boy’s name. The first time Chris Field traveled to Ghana, in 2009, he tagged along with an organization trying to negotiate Tomas’s freedom. The 9-year-old’s family had sold him to a village of Lake Volta fishermen, and now he was forced to drag heavy nets, morning till night, through the dangerous waters of the huge manmade lake. As the aid workers and the villagers talked, Tomas took hold of Field’s hand with a desperate, tight clutch and looked up into his eyes, hopeful.

Then something happened.

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