The Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection‘s Human Trafficking Secretariat has revealed that in 2021 there were 831 human trafficking victims in Ghana as opposed to 587 the year before.
According to the Ministry, the number of prosecutions grew from 13 in 2020 as compared to 22 last year, while the number of investigations increased from 87 in 2020 to 108 in 2021.
The sector Deputy Minister, Madam Lariba Zuleira Abudu, who was speaking at the commencement of a capacity-building training program at Fumesua, in the Ashanti Region’s Ejisu Municipality, said government’s aim is to end the problem.
Human trafficking, she said, was a global canker, therefore, stakeholders ought to work together to identify and deal with the issue head-on.
The three-day programme has been put together by the Ministry in collaboration with the European Union (EU) and Expertise France, an international agency, to deepen the knowledge of security agencies on human trafficking and irregular migration.
It would discuss topics on human rights issues, victim identification, rescue operations, victim protection and investigations, amongst others.
Madam Abudu, who is also the Minister-designate for Gender, Children and Social protection, said the training had been designed to equip the law enforcement agencies to effectively implement the Human Trafficking Act 2005 (Act 694).
She indicated that a National Plan of Action had been launched to deal decisively with human trafficking issues in all their forms.
The Plan, according to her, had been structured in a way to whip up public understanding of the complexity of human trafficking and irregular migration.
This is expected to improve the detections, investigations and prosecutions of suspected human traffickers and smugglers.
Mr. Serge Akpalou, an official of Expertise France, said the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic recession had further exacerbated human trafficking.
Therefore, the French International Agency would not relent working with stakeholders to address the issue.
Chief Superintendent Mike Baah, of the National Headquarters, Ghana Police Service, urged the participants to take the training programme seriously to reduce to the barest minimum the incidence of human trafficking.