The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has received 231 victims of human trafficking rescued by Ghanaian authorities from a trafficking hub in Accra.
In a press statement signed by the Chief Press Officer, Vincent Adekoye, on Friday, he said the victims, comprising 227 males and four females aged between 15 and 18, were rescued during a raid carried out by Ghana’s Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) on April 17, 2025, at Kumsark Estate in Oyarifa, Accra.
According to the EOCO, “Out of approximately 50 houses in Kumsark Estate at Oyarifa, about 30 are occupied by the traffickers and their victims. The victims are mainly young men, some of whom are minors.”
Reacting to this, the Director General of NAPTIP, Binta Adamu Bello, OON, who was represented by the Lagos Commander, Mrs. Comfort Agboko, at the official handover held at the NAPTIP Lagos Command, described the development as “disturbing.”
She revealed that many of the victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation and cybercrime.
She said, “We are seriously disturbed by the latest development which is gradually making Ghana and other neighbouring countries an epicenter of trafficking, precisely cybercrime and other exploitation.
“Some of them were deceived, recruited and trafficked to Ghana and forced into cybercrimes”.
Adamu Bello noted that NAPTIP is taking steps to collaborate with West African countries to combat trafficking networks.
She said, “We have commenced discussion with some of our sister law enforcement agencies in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Gambia and other countries within the African corridor, to restrategize and dismantle the emerging organized criminal gangs within the areas.”
“This also involves a review of some of the existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), bilateral agreements and other legal instruments with a view to ensuring synergy and collateral response,” she stated.
Speaking on the returnees, she said, “At the moment, we shall commence the profiling of these returnees to ascertain their medical needs, their health status, the required skills and other basic variables in order to render to them victim support care and post-trauma services.”
She stressed that the development was a result of NAPTIP’s aggressive crackdown on traffickers in Nigeria.
She said, “In the past few months, NAPTIP has continued to disrupt their activities through our Cybercrime Response Team resulting in the arrest of several of them. This probably explains why they relocated to Ghana. But we shall smoke them out of Ghana with the support of our partner, EOCO and the Immigration Services.”
She assured that “the suspects among them shall be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted in line with the provisions of the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Law Enforcement and Administration Act 2003 as re-enacted in 2015.”
Adamu Bello expressed gratitude to the Ghanaian EOCO, the Nigeria Immigration Service, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) for their cooperation in the rescue effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment