"He's a man who often comes to our village to take children abroad," Nouroudine explains. "My mother gave me to him. She said she'd come later to join us in Cote d'Ivoire [Ivory Coast]."
Nouroudine is small for his 11 years. He is one of 23 children taken into care this week after police in Benin stopped a bus on the way to the border. When they checked identity papers it emerged that most of the children on the Nigerian-registered vehicle were not related to the adults on board.
Twelve adults were arrested and are now in custody in Cotonou, Benin's main city, on charges of child-trafficking. The children are being cared for in a children's home in Cotonou. Nouroudine sits on a stool in one of the classrooms and calmly tells his tale.
"My mother goes back and forward between Benin and Cote d'Ivoire. She works on cocoa farms there.
"I was going to work on the farms with my brother. She paid the man to take me there. She said she'd come later."
If the two boys - his 13-year-old brother is also here - had arrived at their destination, they would have joined the estimated 10,000-15,000 child labourers on farms in Cote d'Ivoire, one of the region's richer countries and the world's biggest cocoa producer.
To get there from Benin requires at least a day's drive, through both Togo and Ghana.
Gabon is another country in the region that draws immigrants.
Last month a ship with a group of trafficked children on board caught the world's attention when it was refused entry and sent back to Benin. The Etireno is still in port here while police try to ascertain who is responsible for the episode.
The fact that Nouroudine says it was his mother who sent him to work abroad is an indication of how difficult it is to fight child-trafficking in West Africa. An estimated 200,000 children are involved each year. When the boy is returned to his village, there is no guarantee his family will not send him abroad to work. UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, in collaboration with the Beninese authorities, is trying to make the practice of sending a child to work abroad socially unacceptable.
One way of doing this is by training members of village committees to watch out for evidence of child-trafficking and to warn parents of the dangers their children face abroad. Dangers such as Nouroudine faced in Nigeria.
As he told the story of his aborted journey to Ivory Coast, he mentioned a trip he had made to neighbouring Nigeria earlier this year. He spoke of it almost as an afterthought, as though it were a normal part of a child's life to be abducted and put to work in a quarry.
"One of my uncles sold me to a man going to Nigeria," he said. He is not sure how much was paid but he knows money changed hands.
"I had to sift sand from gravel in a quarry. There were lots of other children there. Lots of bosses, each one had about eight boys working for him.
"At night I slept on sacks of corn in a warehouse. Once my boss hit me on the shoulder with a spade.
"I started crying and he asked me why I was crying. He said he hadn't hit me hard. Then he hit me again, harder this time."
Nouroudine managed to escape from his unhappy Nigerian adventure after about three weeks. He made it back to his village, but it wasn't long before he was on the road again.
Here in Cotonou, in the frugal Catholic-run children's home, life is far from luxurious. But at least the boys and girls get enough to eat, have a roof over their heads and get some schooling while they wait to be reunited with their families.
Nouroudine never attended school before. He speaks no French, Benin's official language, only the Fon language of his tribe. He says he is keen to get back home.
"I miss my parents. When I get home I'll tell my father again that I want to go to school. I don't ever want to go abroad again."