In 2006, a UNICEF study suggested that in that year alone, 40,000 children were trafficked to, from, and internally within Benin—the numbers of which were expected to increase with each subsequent year. Labor trafficking occurred most frequently due to families taking advantage of the traditional vidomegon system, in which the migration of children is common if a better opportunity for the child exists with a distant relative. In these cases, traffickers are typically family members or third parties working with a child’s family, For instance, in the mid-2000s, the Nigerian police recovered over 200 Beninese children that were working at a sand factory in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

A common Beninese critique of anti-trafficking legislation is that the Western construction of trafficking fails to understand Benin’s cultural system of internal child migration. In Benin, children become familiar with work from a young age, and work is viewed as part of the process of a child’s basic development. With high levels of illiteracy in Benin, it can be difficult for rural populations to learn and comply with legal requirements for child migration. Moreover, extended family members are considered just as responsible for children as their parents, and a child will voluntarily be placed with any relative who can provide them with the best opportunities. With this context, it may be difficult to distinguish child trafficking from cultural child migration, even in cases where travel requirements are not met. 

Child trafficking takes different forms in Benin. A child’s family can sell the child under contract trafficking, in which a family will be paid according to the child’s age and how many years the child is being sold for. A child may also be sold to pay off their parent’s debt bondage, meaning that it is the parent’s loan "debt" that will keep a child in a labor exploitative situation. Another method used is that an abandoned or orphaned child will be taken outside of Benin with fake adoption documents, and the child will be sold upon arriving to the destination country. Due to the religious beliefs and superstitions of many animist groups, children may be sold if they are considered to be sorcerers, meaning that they were born with some type of defect or malformation. If a child was a product of an adulterous relationship or rape, he or she may be sold. Lastly, street children are prone to being trafficked and will often be lured off the street with promises of better living conditions, only to be sold to a separate party.

Sources:

Verbeet 2000: 182. 
US TIP Report