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13.10.2011 General News

Ghanaian Media and Civil Society Step Up Debate on Modern-Day Slavery

13.10.2011 LISTEN
By World Bank

Over 100 Ghanaian and international media, government officials and civil society leaders gathered at the 9th Citizen Kofi Media Dialogue Series on 30 September 2011, in Accra, to discuss the issue of modern-day slavery and the medias role in addressing it. The theme of the event was: Dealing with Modern-Day Slavery: A Case Study of the CNN Freedom Project and the Role of the Ghanaian Media. The event was facilitated by World Bank  Ghana Office, Enslavement Prevention Alliance  West Africa, Citizen Kofi and other partners.Part of the event was a presentation of the Citizens Excellence Award to Abdul Malik Kweku Baako and Anas Aremeyaw Anas, both of The New Crusading Guide newspaper, for their relentless pursuit of the issue of modern-day slavery.

According to the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report by the US State Department: Ghana is a country of origin, transit, and destination for women and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. The report ranks Ghana as a Tier 2 country, which means the government does not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Acts minimum standards, but is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with those standards. Despite the passing in 2005 of the Human Trafficking Act (HTA), which prohibits all forms of trafficking, many forms of trafficking are widespread and unaddressed. Trafficking from isolated rural communities to urban centers or from one isolated rural community to another is most common in Ghana.

Given the globally recognized crucial role of the media as a partner in the fight against human trafficking, journalists present had an opportunity to not only learn and debate about the issue, but partner with local civil society organizations to pursue a variety of cases brought up at the event. They also made a commitment to go beyond reporting cases, through monitoring the aftermath, including post-rescue care of victims, prosecutions of traffickers and ensuring government accountability, in a more sustained manner.

Many international media networks have taken up the challenge of modern-day slavery, one example being the CNN Freedom Project. A statement made on the issue of human trafficking by Tony Maddox, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of CNN International, was read out to encourage the participating media to take action: &CNN will use the full range of our international resources to track and champion this story. We will be in the countries where people are abducted, traded and passed into the hands of the smugglers. We will follow the routes as people are ruthlessly moved to areas where they can generate the highest return on investment. And we will be at the end of the line where men, women and boys and girls are over-worked, raped and abused, and when no longer of value, discarded&

In Ghana, journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, winner of the Hero Award from Trafficking in Persons Office, U.S. State Department, has paved the way with his groundbreaking investigations of human trafficking cases. Joining the discussion via telephone, Anas called for more collaboration among various partners, as it is the most effective way of achieving sustainable results. He commended the role of a number of NGOs and the Ghana Police, and praised his colleagues at The New Crusading Guide, for their unflinching support for all the groundbreaking investigative endeavors he has undertaken.

Managing Editor of The New Crusading Guide, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, stated that it is difficult for media houses such as his, to opt to use their platform to expose social injustices. He said that this was financially challenging, as it is at the expense of not doing the usual sensational stories that sell other newspapers. According to him, the internationally acclaimed exposés of Anas Aremeyaw Anas investigative work could not have been accomplished without the collaboration of civil society and state institutions, which he encouraged the rest of the participants to pursue.

Representing the Government of Ghana at the event, Hon. Hawawu Boya Gariba, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Women and Childrens Affairs, stated that an important step to ensure that human trafficking issues are properly addressed is through the establishment of an independent human trafficking body in Ghana.

One of Ghanas leading human right advocates, Nana Oye Lithur, Executive Director of the Human Rights Advocacy Centre, said that Ghana is faced with the big challenge of poor monitoring, protection and reintegration of trafficked children, who have been rescued. According to her, there were countless cases where victims rescued from trafficking rings went back to their traffickers, because there was no post-rescue care available for them. She also revealed that loop holes in the adoption system have created a new type of human trafficking problem in Ghana and called for the government to take up greater responsibility in combating human trafficking. She cited a case where some Ghanaian children were adopted by Westerners, who ended up forcing them to engage in sexual intercourse with dogs, while videotaping it.

Tatiana Kotlyarenko, Executive Director of Enslavement Prevention Alliance  West Africa, shared highlights of the report titled Ghanas Human Trafficking Act: Successes and Shortcomings in Six Years of Implementationbased on comprehensive research and interviews of over 80 anti-human trafficking stakeholders in Ghana.

The report assessed that: Government entities in Ghana have achieved most of the preventative goals and tasks set forth in the Act, making the first P  prevention  the most successful so far. The Act mandates extensive protection for trafficked persons. Government entities in Ghana have made some efforts to provide protection to trafficked persons by way of rescue, shelter, and other support, but have taken insufficient steps to implement the second P  protection  successfully. The police and courts of Ghana have achieved some success in arresting and prosecuting human traffickers, but based on the significant discrepancy between the limited success and the extensive and pervasive nature of human trafficking countrywide, it would be difficult to say that implementation of the third P  prosecution  has reached its full potential.

The report also reveals that: The government of Ghana initiated only six prosecutions and obtained four convictions of trafficking offenders during 2010  a decline in prosecution efforts from the previous year  and it failed to provide information on the number of trafficked persons it referred to protective services. Despite the governments recognition that the majority of trafficking occurred within the country, authorities only prosecuted two cases of internal, or domestic, trafficking during 2010.

One of the report interviewees, who also moderated the event, Angela Dwamena-Aboagye, Executive Director of The Ark Foundation stated: The major weakness of the Human Trafficking Act . . . is that it doesnt look at means of appropriation. The money doesnt come, nothing gets done, and you get a situation & where an NGO thats not so well-endowed has to look for 500 GHC ($350 USD) for the anti-trafficking unit of the police to put fuel into a police vehicle to transport trafficking victims back to their families&

Other speakers highlighted the need for the Department of Social Welfare to be well resourced to scale up its activities as the state institution mandated to take care of victims. The need for a strong collaboration between the media and CSOs was underscored. In his closing words after receiving his Award, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako noted that he had learned a lot at the event, particularly the leading role being played by many NGOs, and looked forward to working very closely with them in the future to bring out culprits and highlight the plight of victims of modern-day slavery.

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