James Kofi Annan. And his
NGO Challenging Heights.

Sold at six

James Kofi Annan was born into a large, poor family on the coast of Ghana. At the age of six, he was sold into the country’s fishing industry on Lake Volta.¹ For the next seven years he labored as a child fisherman across more than twenty villages along the lake—paddling, hauling nets, and diving into the water before dawn—beaten, underfed, and cut off from any childhood at all.

The escape—and teaching himself to read

At thirteen, James escaped. He returned home unable to read or write, years behind other children, and with nothing but a refusal to accept the life he had been handed. Working for a living, he began to teach himself. He caught up, went on to college, and rose—improbably, completely—to become a manager at Barclays Bank of Ghana.

The fact that he could neither read nor write
did not stop him from following his dream.

From Barclays to the fight

He could have stopped there. A stable career, a salary, a way out earned against impossible odds. Instead, James resigned from Barclays to devote himself fully to children’s rights in Ghana. Despite repeated death threats from those who profit from the trade in children, he has never stopped his work to free child slaves, nor his campaign to end child slavery on the lake.

Challenging Heights

In 2003, James founded the NGO Challenging Heights—a textbook act of social entrepreneurship.¹ It rescues children from forced labor on Lake Volta, runs a recovery shelter and school to help them heal and catch up, and works upstream—with parents, fishermen, and whole communities—so that fewer children are ever sold in the first place. Within its first four years, the organization had helped liberate some 500 children.¹ Today Challenging Heights reports having liberated more than 2,880 children and women from trafficking and exploitation in all.⁶ The World’s Children’s Prize records that it has supported over 15,000 children who had been enslaved or were at risk.²

“The children are empowered to refuse to be trafficked, the parents are empowered to protect their children, and the fishermen know that it is wrong to enslave children.”

That is how James describes the work—not as a raid, but as a change of mind across an entire community. Today, fewer fishermen on the lake have the opportunity to enslave children, because more children refuse to go and more parents refuse to sell them.

Recognition

James’ work has been honored around the world. He received the Frederick Douglass Award from Free the Slaves in 2008,³ and in October 2013 he received the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child—the so-called “children’s Nobel.”⁴ In 2022 the World’s Children’s Prize honored him again, shortlisting him as one of eight past laureates nominated for its Decade Child Rights Hero award.⁵ Challenging Heights has won a string of further international awards for its work protecting and empowering young people.

Since the film

Fisher of Kids ends in 2013. James’ work did not. He still leads Challenging Heights as its founder and president, more than twenty years after he started it.⁶ By the organization’s own account it has now liberated more than 2,880 children and women from trafficking and exploitation—many from the Lake Volta fishing industry alone—supported more than 8,800 through trauma-informed recovery care and schooling, and reached more than 15,280 people through prevention work.⁶

The rescues have not stopped. In 2023 the organization recorded 117 children freed in five operations mounted with state institutions, and 268 children cared for at its recovery center.⁷ In April 2026 it worked with the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service to rescue 42 trafficking victims in the Western North Region—36 of them admitted to its rehabilitation center.⁸ Its stated goal is to end child trafficking and child slavery in Ghana’s fishing industry by 2030.⁷

Neither have the dangers. At around 2 a.m. on December 29, 2025, a shot was fired into James’ home; the projectile pierced the ceiling, narrowly missing a living area. He and his household were unharmed, and Ghana’s Criminal Investigations Department took over the investigation.⁹ He has not stepped back from the work.

His is the story Fisher of Kids was made to tell—and the reason the film still matters. To support his work directly, visit Challenging Heights.

References

1. Child Labor Coalition, Child Labor and Enslavement in Ghana’s Lake Volta Fishing Industry (biographical detail on James Kofi Annan and Challenging Heights). stopchildlabor.org
2. World’s Children’s Prize, James Kofi Annan. worldschildrensprize.org/jameskofiannan
3. Free the Slaves, Thank You Desmond Tutu (Archbishop Tutu presenting the 2008 Frederick Douglass Award to James Kofi Annan). freetheslaves.net
4. World’s Children’s Prize, Child Rights Heroes and Awards (recipients by year). worldschildrensprize.org/child-rights-heroes-year-award
5. World’s Children’s Prize, Decade Child Rights Hero (the eight past laureates nominated in 2022). worldschildrensprize.org/laureates2022
6. Challenging Heights, Our Impact (the organization’s own cumulative totals—2,888+ liberated, 8,805+ supported, 15,280+ reached—and James Kofi Annan’s role as founder and president, stated on its official site; accessed July 16, 2026). The year-by-year detail behind the totals is published in its annual reports. challengingheights.org/our-impact
7. Challenging Heights, Annual Report 2023, pp. 7–8 (117 victims rescued in five operations; 268 children given rehabilitation support at the recovery center; the 2020–2030 strategic goal). challengingheights.org/annual-reports
8. Challenging Heights, Challenging Heights Partners Ghana Police to Rescues 42 Girls from Human Trafficking (April 27, 2026). challengingheights.org
9. Challenging Heights, Official Statement: Investigation into Attack at the Residence of the President of Challenging Heights, James Kofi Annan (January 11, 2026). challengingheights.org