At least 116 children have been rescued from forced labour in the area surrounding Ghana’s Volta Lake, national police report. Of the 116, at least 15 come from other regions of Ghana and have been victims of domestic child trafficking.
Aided by INTERPOL, 80 Ghanaian police officer participated in Operation Bia II, which was carried out earlier this month between May 6th and 13th. Specialists from INTERPOL’s General Secretariat and National Central Bureau were among the participants. INTERPOL has participated in similar operations in Burkina Faso and Gabon.
The operation, which raided a number of fishing communities at the same time, led to the arrests and convictions of 28 people. Each of them has been sentenced to serve 16 months in prison for engaging in child labour and exposing children to hazardous circumstances.
INTERPOL conducted another operation to rescue 29 children who had been trafficked into the commercial sex industry in Accra. The children were discovered after 120 commercial sex workers were interviewed in an effort to determine whether they were affiliated with trafficking networks. While the investigation is ongoing, the 29 children have been taken into the care of social services.
Superintendent Patience Quaye is the head of the Human Trafficking Unit. She says that parents from nearby villages had sold children to work in the local fishing industry for as little as GH¢150 (CAN$100). In some cases, children as young as four years old were sold.
Child labour and child trafficking remain critical child protection challenges in Ghana, and across West Africa. Superintendent Quaye stated that 284 children were rescued in an operation similar to Bia II that was carried out last year.
Health professionals, immigration and social affairs government officials, non-governmental organizations and social workers were on hand to provide support services to the rescued children. The children have since been taken into state care.
Superintendent Quaye emphasized the importance of such collaborative approaches to preventing child labour and child trafficking.
“The success of Operation Bia II in identifying and rescuing children who were being forced to work in exploitative conditions is a robust start in identifying, disrupting and dismantling such activities and will lead to hundreds more children being saved,” said Jon Eyers, the Assistant Director of INTERPOL's Trafficking in Human Beings Unit.
According to statistics held by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 34% of Ghana’s children were engaged in child labour (averaged over 2000-2009).
Source: soschildrensvillages.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment