Corruption impedes anti-trafficking measures - Report

Page 31: June 11, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE US government has called on Ghana to improve its efforts to prosecute and convict human traffickers.
It said Ghana should also be bold to suspend government officials accused of complicity from their official duty until they can be prosecuted or cleared of allegations against them.
In its 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report on Ghana, the State Department said corruption among legal officials was an obstacle to the effective anti-trafficking measures in Ghana.
It noted that an official of the Ghana Immigration Service who was videotaped accepting bribes to facilitate the trafficking of Nigerian victims to Europe was only transferred to a post outside Accra.
It said Ghana was a source, transit and destination for children and women trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual activities.
“Trafficking within the country is more prevalent than transnational trafficking and the majority of victims are children. Both boys and girls are trafficked within Ghana for forced labour in agriculture and the fishing industry, as porters and for street hawking”, it said.
It said the Government of Ghana does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking though it is making significant efforts to do so.
The report said while Ghana took some law enforcement steps, through police raids last year to address trafficking for sexual purposes, investigations and prosecutions were limited and there were no convictions of the perpetrators of this crime during the reporting year.
It advised Ghana to develop a system of providing secure care for rescued victims of sex trafficking; create increased overall shelter for rescued trafficked victims and train government social workers to identify girls and women who are victims of trafficking for prostitution.
It also suggested increased co-ordination between the police and government social workers in conducting trafficking raids and rescue as well as fulfilling commitments to the international community to work with private cocoa companies to survey 50 per cent of all cocoa producing regions to measure the incidence of worst forms of child labour and forced adult labour by July 2008.
On prosecution, the report said Ghana demonstrated modest efforts to combat trafficking through law enforcement efforts in 2007.
“Ghana prohibits all forms of trafficking through its 2005 Human Trafficking Act, which prescribes a minimum penalty of five years’ imprisonment for all forms of trafficking. This penalty is sufficiently stringent and commensurate with penalties prescribed for rape,” it noted.
It said Ghana reported nine trafficking arrests, all of which were at various stages of prosecution but pointed out that there were no reported convictions or punishments of the offenders.
“In November 2007, the CID conducted an operation against a trafficking ring, rescuing 17 female sex trafficking victims, one of whom was a minor. The victims were being trafficked through Ghana from Nigeria en route to Europe. The CID arrested the suspects; they were eventually released on bail. The suspects are awaiting trial,” it added.
The report said in January 2008, the CID conducted a raid on a cluster of brothels that operate with minors as prostitutes, adding that about 78 male clients and three bar employees were detained by the police but those criminal suspects were released after several hours.
It said they were released in part because the CID lacked facilities to accommodate such a large number of people.
Unfortunately, it said, none of the detainees was charged.
The report said the Ghanaian government demonstrated limited efforts to protect these victims.
It said the two homes which the government provided for destitute children in Accra suffered from lack of resources and were stretched beyond capacity, stressing that “Ghana lacks shelters for sex trafficking victims and Ghanaian officials displayed very poor procedures for referring victims.”
It said the Department of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs assumed custody of the 60 minor girls and transported them to a shelter on the night of the raid but due to lack of adequate facilities and security measures to care for or protect the victims, some of the women and minor girls rescued subsequently left the facility.
It said overall victim assistance efforts had declined over the past two years, however, particularly with respect to sex trafficking victims.
It said the police employed no systematic procedures for identifying trafficking victims and referring them to government or NGO care facilities, adding that when border officials found victims, they sometimes tried to locate homes in border villages where the victims could stay until their families were found.
The report said Ghana did not provide legal alternatives to the removal of foreign victims to countries where they face hardship or retribution.
It commended Ghana for its continued activities to raise awareness about trafficking during the reporting period.
The government launched several campaigns to educate the public on the 2005 law against trafficking. The Human Trafficking Board and the Human Trafficking Fund mandated by the 2005 law were established in July 2007.
It said the board, which was composed of government agencies, international organisations and NGOs, had begun drafting a national action plan against trafficking.
The statement also said the government did not take measures to ensure that its nationals who are deployed abroad as part of peacekeeping missions did not engage in or facilitate trafficking.