MP raises serious question about US-based organization following BBC documentary on child trafficking

In the wake of the BBC Africa Eye investigation that uncovered a series of false child trafficking claims by an American charity organization, International Justice Mission, the Member of Parliament for Afram Plains North, Betty Krosbi has expressed the belief that most of the children labeled as victims of child trafficking and child labor by the organization are actually not victims of child trafficking and child labor.

In the view of the MP, most of the supposed victims are children who were living and assisting family members who engage in some menial and commercial job for survival.

When contacted by the BBC during the investigations, Betty Krosbi outlined some of the trades the children engage in, explaining that in most cases the children join their family members voluntarily.

She surmised that the organization should be questioned for forcefully separating the children from their family members.

"These children have not been sold or transferred. They are not under any coercion. Their families feel that the only means of survival is by going fishing. Teaching their children their trade. I have met these children. I have met with their families.

“What they need is to be with their families and not be taken away and kept at places that we don't know. So are these NGOs kidnapping the children or they rather are into trafficking? Because if you take somebody's child illegally from them, that is trafficking," the MP told BBC Africa Eye Investigative Journalist, Kyenkyenhene Boateng.

A BBC Africa Eye investigation has uncovered how a US-based anti-human trafficking organisation International Justice Mission (IJM) may be falsely separating children from their families as part of their operations.

In a documentary titled “The Night They Came for Our Children” BBC uncovered two classical instances where the multimillion donor funded organisation instigated an anti-trafficking operation with the help the Ghana Police Service and social service department.

In both cases, the BBC said “there was scarce-to-no evidence of trafficking” however the children were removed from their homes while their relatives had to endure prosecution that landed some in jail.



KPE