116 Trafficked Children Rescued - 28 Men Sentenced

Four of the suspects.

A special joint operation by the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service and its partners has led to the rescue of 116 children, aged between four and 17, from communities along the Volta Lake.

The partners who took part in the operation on Wednesday are Interpol Ghana, the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Ghana Immigration Service and the Partners in Community Development (PACODEP), a Krachi-based NGO working to integrate trafficked children into communities along the Volta Lake.

After the children had been screened, it was discovered that 15 of them had been trafficked from the Central, Greater Accra and Eastern regions and the southern part of the Volta Region.

Thirty men who had engaged the children in fishing activities at the time of the operation were also arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment each by the Krachi West Magistrate Court.

They pleaded guilty to two counts of exposing children to danger and engaging minors in hazardous activities and were convicted eight months each on each count.

The court, presided over by Mr Emmanuel Davis, remanded two others who pleaded not guilty in prison custody to reappear in two weeks.

The decision of the court incurred the displeasure of relatives of the convicts.

The rescue operation, which lasted about two hours, was met with resistance from some of the fishermen, while others ordered their ‘children’ to run into the bush on the arrival of the rescue team.

The Director of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Patience Quaye, who supervised the operation, told the Daily Graphic that the exercise had been successful.

She said the accused were first-time offenders and she was pleased with the sentences.

Supt Quaye said the children would be integrated with their families, while others trafficked from other regions would be helped by the Department of Social Welfare and PACODEP to locate their families.

A Crime and Intelligence Officer at the Interpol Secretariat, Mr Knut Brattvik, said human trafficking was becoming a huge global security threat.

He said Interpol had worked over the years to help curb the rise in human trafficking but it was now focusing on the source.

He said Europe and the developed world had become destinations for human trafficking and so much attention was being placed on the source of the trafficking.