Project

Ghana’s Kayayo: Reaching for a Better Life

Every year, thousands of women and young girls migrate from Ghana's poorer, Muslim north to the major cities of the Christian south. Known as Kayayo, they travel to work as porters in city markets, and spend their days carrying heavy loads for meager wages. Due to a shortage of employment opportunities and money for housing, many end up sleeping on the streets or being coerced into sexual servitude in exchange for shelter.

While some are forced by their families to go and help increase the household's earnings, others travel willingly, hoping to escape arranged marriages or the north's severe lack of employment. Many work seasonally, returning home annually to help harvest on family farms, and many, drawn to an appearance of becoming more modern, stay on in the cities and attempt to carve out a new existence. Their reasons for making the journey vary, but the root cause is the same: They are at the center of a cycle of poverty, from a region known for poor education and infrastructure and infertile land, and they are trying to escape.

Photojournalist Peter DiCampo lived in a village in northern Ghana for nearly two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer. After hearing numerous and conflicting stories of the Kayayo lifestyle, from Ghanaian friends, aid workers, and the girls themselves, he is now exploring the phenomenon and its causes and effects.

On Myths and Poverty

Agbogblushie is a shantytown in Ghana ridden with poverty and myth surrounding its people.