The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has expressed worry over how human trafficking activities are on the rise in parts of the country.
According to data from the Ministry, over 800 persons have been trafficked in parts of Ghana as of 2021.
Minister-designate for Gender, Children, and Social Protection, Haji Lariba Zuweira Abudu who disclosed this at a three-day capacity-building training on human trafficking and irregular migration for law enforcement officers in the Ashanti Region called for concerted efforts to tackle the situation.
“The total number of human trafficking victims increased to 831 in 2021 from 587,” she said.
Hajia Lariba indicated that the Ministry and key stakeholders are relentless in tackling human trafficking activities.
According to her, over 375 officers have been trained and 80 officers have benefitted from an advanced level of training under the Expertise France Project.
She further said the Gender Ministry and the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority a fortnight ago trained 140 Civil Aviation Officers on Victim identification and counter-trafficking activities to ensure that the country’s airports are well secured and victims are rescued on time.
She added that traffickers continue to deceive victims with juicy offers that lead them to be trafficked and are left traumatized in the end.
The Minister-designate commended law enforcement agencies for the recent interceptions made at the various border points and rescued some victims who have since been successfully reintegrated back into their communities in Nigeria through the support of the Human Trafficking Fund.
She also encouraged members of the public to volunteer information by using the ‘See something, say something approach to help the security agencies rescue trafficked victims since Human Trafficking is a security threat.
The training was to build the capacities of law enforcement agencies on Human rights issues, victim identification, rescue operations, victim protection, investigations, and building dockets among others.
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