A joint effort between community members, parents and guardians on one hand and anti-human trafficking institutions on the other, is the best way to deal with the human trafficking menace confronting Ghana at the moment, Victoria Natsu, Acting Executive Secretary, Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence Secretariat of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, has said.
According to her, although state agencies and institutions have their own duties to effectively, it was incumbent on Ghanaians themselves to realise the dangers involved in human trafficking and desist from such act.
Her comments follow recent concerns expressed by the Minister for the Interior, Prosper Bani, over the increasing rate of human trafficking in the country.
Mr Bani told police officers as part of his two-day tour of the Ashanti Region on Wednesday July 27 that: “We have observed that there has been an increasing trend in the trafficking of human beings across our borders and within our country. This is not giving us a very good image. Our brothers and sisters, or aunties and nephews are being trafficked abroad to undertake activities that do not befit them as Ghanaians, proud as we are. I will like to task the Ghana Police Service, the anti-human trafficking unit, to begin to live up to expectation by not only arresting culprits, but by ensuring that this network of human trafficking groups are destroyed for the benefit of our young brothers and sisters.”
Speaking in connection with this development in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM, on Thursday October 6, Ms Natsu said: “Human trafficking is a secret business people are engaged in and so most of the time we don’t see the people behind the practice.”
“If we can deal with trafficking effectively, it shouldn’t be only the Ministry of Gender and Immigration Services or the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service. The people themselves must get involved in anti-human trafficking activities. When we (officials of state agencies) come to the communities to do sensitisation programmes on this matter, they should listen and apply what we tell them because these cautions are in their own interest. It is because of the community members that we travel all the way from Accra to the far-off communities to educate them, therefore, they will need to listen to us.”
She added: “We try to let them know the dangers of human trafficking but some remain adamant. In spite of all these cautions, they still get themselves into this kind of acts and when faced with self-inflicted problems, they call on the agencies to act swiftly.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
