Gender Minister: Over 611 victims of human trafficking have been rescued

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has rescued, supported and given care to over 611 victims of human trafficking since 2019.

Cynthia Mamle Morrison, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, said out of this number, 200 were children and 411 were adults.

She was speaking at this week’s Meet the Press engagement at the Ministry of Information on Wednesday (2 September).

Mrs Morrison said Ghana is currently on a tier two ranking by the US Department of Labor (DoL).

Tier two countries are those whose governments do not comply fully with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) 2000 minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to be in compliance with those standards.

She said this shows that Ghana is making a significant effort to fight human trafficking.

“Government has released GHC1 million into the Human Trafficking Fund to effectively combat the menace with the operationalisation of two government shelters to give care to rescued victims of human trafficking,” she said.

Public sensitisation

Morrison said her ministry has so far trained 45 law-enforcement officers with the aim of building their capacity to better help with the fight human trafficking in Ghana.

The ministry has undertaken a series of community dialogues and sensitisations in efforts to increase awareness and education on human trafficking and irregular migration issues.

She said this ultimately improved in reducing the rate of human trafficking and related activities in the country.

“As part of the Blue Day, the ministry embarked on a social media awareness raising campaign on human trafficking. Ghana joined the world to commemorate this year’s World Day Against Trafficking in Persons (Blue Day).

“This was to intensify our prevention mechanisms through awareness raising campaigns.”

Support for the vulnerable

Morrison announced that in total 1,451,656 extremely poor households were registered on the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme and GHC334,084 five cycles of cash grants had been paid to them.

In addition, 73% of LEAP beneficiaries were registered on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), and 5,522 individuals linked to productive socio-economic activities.

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