Last year, the country's security authorities rescued 831 victims of human trafficking.
This was followed by 32 prosecutions, with 13 persons being convicted thus far.
Dr. Afisah Zakariah, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MOGCSP), made the announcement in a speech read on her behalf at the opening of a three-day capacity building program on 'Combating Human Trafficking and Irregular Migration in Ghana' in Ho, Volta Region.
Around 70 people from the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Ghana Police Service, Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), and welfare officers from the Volta and Oti regions attended the three-day workshop, which was co-hosted by the MOGCSP and Expertise France and funded by the French government.
The goal was for the trainees to be able to properly investigate, rescue, and prosecute human trafficking victims.
Unlawful immigration
Dr. Zakariah stated that despite COVID-19 and the following sealing of the country's borders, human trafficking and illegal migration continued to occur.
"With bogus and luxurious employment promises, traffickers now have a new method of luring their victims into sexual exploitation, child labor, or domestic slavery," she noted.
Dr. Zakariah stated that human trafficking was now the world's second biggest trade and organized crime, making security agency capacity building critical for the protection of the vulnerable, particularly women and children.
Domestic human trafficking is more common than transnational human trafficking, according to the Volta Regional Police Commander, COP Edward Oduro-Kwateng, who revealed this in a presentation.
Boys were transported from other regions of the nation to labor in the fishing sector, quarries, and cocoa fields in the Volta Region, he added, for long hours in unsafe circumstances.
Some of the females were transported to the region, according to COP Kwateng, to smoke and sell fish in fishing towns.
He said that "some of these girls are sexually victimized by fishermen and older trafficking lads." According to Daniel Nyampong Okantey, a Deputy Superintendent of Immigration (DSI), the GIS apprehended and repatriated 168 persons between the ages of 18 and 35 who were suspected of being human trafficking victims from the West African sub-region in the first quarter of 2022.
He stated that 119 men and nine women were present.
Africans from West Africa
The majority of them were from Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Cote d'Ivoire, according to DSI Okantey, the chaplain of the GIS Volta Regional Command.
Effective Investigations and Prosecution of Sex and Labor Trafficking Offenses, Surveillance and Intelligence Gathering for Human Trafficking, Border Response and Support for Human Trafficking Victims, and Docket Building: Interviewing, Evidence Taking, and Victim Support were among the topics covered during the training.