Negotiating Identities of Child Labour Survivors through Image and Forum Theatre in Ghana

Child labour in Ghana disrupts not only children’s physical and economic wellbeing but also their sense of identity, belonging, and childhood. While many rescued children are reintegrated into formal schooling, they often struggle to resettle within families, classrooms, and communities because years of servitude, premature adulthood, and harsh working conditions have reshaped how they understand themselves and how they believe others perceive them. As a result, survivors frequently inhabit multiple, sometimes conflicting identities that complicate their return to community life. Grounded in Swann’s Identity Negotiation Theory, this study examines how child labour survivors seek to affirm, defend, and renegotiate their identities in post-rescue contexts. The study argues that reintegration is not merely a logistical or educational process but a deeply social and psychological negotiation between survivors and their communities. Drawing on practitioner-led fieldwork in two high-risk communities of Senya Beraku in the Central Region, where children are trafficked to work in fishing along the Volta Lake, and Sefwi Asawinso in the Western North Region, where children are exploited as cocoa farm labourers, the research employed Image Theatre and Forum Theatre as participatory methods for identity exploration and reconstruction. Through embodied performance, collective reflection, and dialogic intervention, survivors were able to visualize their experiences, challenge stigmatizing narratives, and rehearse alternative identities that enabled greater social belonging. The findings suggest that participatory theatre can serve as a powerful mechanism for identity negotiation, emotional healing, and social reintegration by creating spaces where survivors, families, and community members collaboratively rethink what it means to be a “rescued child.”