Bolgatanga Police Arrest Two Child Traffickers

The Police on Sunday had to fire tear-gas to disperse a large crowd that stormed the Bolgatanga Police Station to demand that two suspected human traffickers be released for instant justice to be meted out to them.

The two suspected to be child traffickers were arrested in separate incidents.

One of them, Akua Signa was transporting 13 children aged between eight and 13 years from Emuna in the Central Region to Gambia through Burkina Faso and was arrested by Immigration Officers at the Namoo border, near Bongo, between Ghana and Burkina Faso.

The other, Paul Kwabena Apreku, a farmer, was arrested for trafficking in six boys aged between 13 and 20 years from Wulu, a farming community in the Upper West Region, to Faaman in the Ashanti Region to engage them as labourers on his orange farm.

Signa explained that she was part of a group of traders, who were taking the children, with their parents' consent, to Gambia to assist in fishing and other commercial ventures.

She said at the Namoo border, Immigration Officers refused them exit because of the children and she volunteered to send them back to Emuna, while her colleagues continued the journey to Gambia.

Birth certificates she showed to journalists as documents covering the children turned out to be faked as none of the children responded to the names on the certificates.

The youngest among them was forced by Signa to respond. He could only give his father's name as Ishmail.

The boy, whose name was on the certificate as Kofi Ishmail, pointed to Signa as his mother, but could not tell her name.

Immigration officers, who accompanied Signa to the Bolgatanga District Police Station, corroborated her story.

They said they were on the lookout for people engaged in human trafficking.

Apreku, who hails from Faaman in Ashanti, said he sought the consent and approval of the children's parents through his sister, an Akpeteshie seller at Wulu.

He added that the parents of the boy's including the chief of the area, were involved in the agreement to let them go and work on his orange farm.

He said he sent four boys from the village to Faaman two years ago to engage in orange farming as labourers, adding that farmers in the area agree together with the boys to provide a radio set and a bicycle for each of the boys at the end of each farming season.

They, in addition, pay for their medical care, clothes and feeding.

The eldest among them, 20-year-old Mohammed Abu, defended Apreku and said they were not stolen but were taken with the consent of their parents.