Ghana Town Child Trafficking Explained

The director of Social Welfare Mrs. Fanta Ceesay in an exclusive interview with The Independent has brought to public notice more startling revelations about the recently busted child trafficking network conducted by Ghana town residents describing it as highly organized, efficient and difficult to break.

Touching on a range of issues affecting children such as pornography, drug trafficking child soldiers, peadophilia, Mrs. Ceesay said her office has been working hard in recent weeks on the issue of the trafficking of women and children.

"We mounted an investigation into reports from concerned individuals including some Ghanaians at first and then invited both the Ghanaian Association and consul in The Gambia for a discussion on the matter. We told them categorically that we were with the belief that child trafficking and child labour were very evident crimes in their community and that we will not tolerate such a violation of the rights of children in this country. They promised to do something to change that situation.

The association said they have already shown concern over the issue by approaching their community. We later invited the elders of Ghana Town as well and advised them to sort themselves out. I was initially of the opinion that the children in question were theirs. But later investigations revealed facts contrary to this opinion. There was no improvement in the situation of these children. We then joined forces with the police, UNICEF, BAFROW, GAMCOTRAP and other child protection agencies and launched a dawn raid on Ghana Town. We called it Operation Save the Children II. What we discovered was shocking. Eleven people slept in a single room and all the children found were in terrible conditions" Mrs. Ceesay explained.

Asked who were the people behind this atrocious act, Fanta replied that the actual ringleaders could not be apprehended because they are currently in Guinea Conakry.

"Child trafficking is as complex as drug trafficking. It is not easy to break at all because of the spreading nature of its tentacles. The ringleaders of the Ghana Town child trafficking network have shipped all the boys, mostly minors to Guinea to hunt for sharks for their fins, a commodity which constitutes a highly lucrative business in East Asian countries. These people are now operating in Guinea, Conakry because this is the season for catching sharks", she pointed out.

"These children have no education at all. In fact it was a daunting task for us to extract information from them because none of them could speak English or any of the local languages we know here.

"We had to speak to them through an interpreter. It was then that we realised that these children were abducted and that some do not even know who their parents were. The trade is believed to have been going on for a long time but it had remained largely unreported. This is however the first major crackdown ever in The Gambia," she said.