New modes of human trafficking must be addressed urgently – Deputy gender minister

Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Francisca Oteng Mensah

The Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Francisca Oteng Mensah, has called for urgent actions to curb new modes of human trafficking that is on the rise in the country.

The MP for Kwabre East made this call at her Ridge office, during a courtesy call on her by International Justice Mission (IJM) Ghana, an NGO that supports authorities to respond to and combat human trafficking.

According to the Deputy Minister, there are now new modes of trafficking such as “trafficking into the streets.” This is the phenomenon where people are deceptively moved from the village to the streets in the big cities as beggars.

Each beggar is immediately saddled with debt bondage arising from their transportation to the city and given a daily quota of sales to make, to be able to earn their freedom after a period.

Each morning and evening several of them, packed inside a vehicle are dropped and picked at vantage points in the city respectively before and after working for their masters. “This is intelligence picked from the National Security and the BNI,” she stressed the authenticity of the information.

This, amongst other existing forms of human trafficking and social vices, she intimated are of great concern to the ministry and all hands are needed to support the fight of the ministry and affiliate agencies to curb the menace.

The Deputy Minister was quick to stress the importance of the work of IJM and added that “human trafficking is a headache for all of us.’’ She went on to thank the IJM officers for the kind words and congratulatory messages on her appointment, and the interest to keep working with the ministry and the relevant secretariats under it.

The delegation from IJM was led by Anita Budu, who is the newly appointed Director of IJM West Africa. Hon. Oteng Mensah congratulated the new director and remarked “I am particularly happy that we have a woman occupying this position. I want to assure you of my assistance and commitment”.