Gov’t releases GHC1 million to fight human trafficking
The Minister of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, Cynthia Mamle Morrison has revealed that government has released GHC1 million to help combat human trafficking in the country.
The amount was released into the Human Trafficking Fund.
“The government has released one million Ghana Cedis into the Human Trafficking Fund to effectively combat the menace with the operationalization of two government shelters to give care to rescued victims of human trafficking.”
Speaking at the Meet The Press series on Wednesday, Cynthia Morrison revealed that since 2019 the ministry had rescued, supported, and given care to 611 victims of Human Trafficking.
Adult shelters in the period under review received 63 survivors of human trafficking.
The minister said 200 of the survivors were children whereas the remaining 411, adults.
Human trafficking is an act of recruitment, transportation, trading, or receipt of a person within and across national borders for the purposes of exploitation.
According to the minister, Ghana is currently on a Tier 2 ranking with the US Department of Labour (DOL) tier ranking.
She said this shows that Ghana is making a significant effort to fight human trafficking.
The ministry, she said, has so far trained 45 law enforcement officers with the aim of building their capacity to better help with the fight against Human Trafficking.
On the issue of public education, the minister said her outfit undertook series of community dialogues and sensitizations in a bid to increase awareness and education on Human Trafficking and irregular migration issues.
She said this ultimately improved in reducing the rate of human trafficking and its related activities in the country.
“As part of the Blue Day, the Ministry embarked on a Social Media Awareness raising campaign on Human Trafficking. Ghana joined the world to commemorate this year’s World Day against Trafficking in Persons (Blue Day). This was to intensify our prevention mechanisms through awareness-raising campaigns.”
Cynthia Morrison said the ministry has organised a durbar for 75 traditional leaders from across the country to sensitize them on the dangers associated with Human Trafficking.