The Human Trafficking Secretariat (HTS) under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social PROTECTION (MoGCSP) with the support of Expertise France is organizing a four-day ‘Advanced Training and Sensitization Workshop’ for some fifty (50) selected Law Enforcement Officers to nib the menace of Human Trafficking in the country.
The workshop started on Tuesday, July 19, 2022, and is expected to end on Friday, July 22 2022 in Accra.
The project, funded by European Union in Ghana through the European Union Emergency Trust Fund and Expertise France, is built around four components, namely; (the institutional and operational consolidation of interdepartmental bodies fighting against human trafficking, law enforcement, protection of victims and regional cooperation)
The purpose of the training is to enhance the basic skills of Law Enforcement Agencies and Social Workers with regard to the identification and management of human trafficking cases.
The training is targeted to engage participants on various concepts of human trafficking, enhance their interview skills and also heighten participants’ witness protection measures as well as foster collaboration and networking among Law Enforcement Officers.
In a keynote address read at the opening ceremony on behalf of the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, also the Caretaker Minister for the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah, the Chief Director of the Ministry, Dr. Afisah Zakariah commended the stakeholders for the good work done in the country and urged the Director General of Police to equip the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit and the Cybercrime Office to help combat critical issues of human trafficking confronting the country.
She reiterated that the institutional mechanisms and staff capacity to combat human trafficking are important, hence the creation of prosecution sections in the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit in the Ghana Police Service, the Economic and Organize Crime Office, Anti-Human Smuggling and Trafficking Desk Officers in the Attorney General’s Department.
Touching on the issue of child begging on the streets in the country, the Chief Director lauded the stakeholders for dealing with the situation thus, the actions would enable us to protect our children.
“As you may have observed the collaborative efforts with the Nigeriens on our streets have reduced and we hope to continue to protect our children from all forms of exploitation,” she added.
She expressed her profound gratitude to the Law Enforcement Officers for the immense support and recommended that they are supported in their various areas of work in the agencies.
Giving the purpose of gathering the Country Director of Expertise France, Mr. Seth Akpalou commended the Human Trafficking Secretariat for organizing such an educative training and pledged the organisation’s support to the Government of Ghana, the Ministry and the Law Enforcement Officers in the fight against human trafficking in all shapes and forms in the country.
According to him, the Organisation in collaboration with HTS has embarked on a series of basic training across the country to build the capacity of law enforcement agencies in the detection, investigations, prosecution and collaboration of issues on human trafficking.
Mr. Akpalou is of believing that at the end of the five-day capacity-building workshop, officers would have a better knowledge of human trafficking which will intend to increase the number of prosecutions and awareness in the judicial sector.
The Director General of Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), COP/Mrs. MYT Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, in a statement read, encouraged participants to share information to track down traffickers and protect the victims in the various communities.
She made a call on the stakeholders to share the knowledge acquired with their counterparts who never had the opportunity to partake in the training.
The Head of the Human Trafficking Secretariat, Madam Abena Annobea Asare admonished participants to take the training seriously to help combat the human trafficking canker in society, especially during this COVID- 19 pandemic era.
The stakeholder’s engagement focused on ensuring that participants’ general knowledge of Human Trafficking is greatly improved as well as scale-up the abilities and skills to identify and detect human trafficking cases.
Presentations were shown on General Overview of Human Trafficking in Ghana, TIP report and latest trends of Human Trafficking in Ghana, victim identification, regular and irregular migration and patrolling of unapproved roots
There was an open forum for Questions and Answers where the Law Officers added their inputs in the end.
Present at the opening ceremony were the Chief Director of MOGCSP, Dr. Afisah Zakariah, the Country Director of Expertise France, Mr. Seth Akpalou, the Head of Human Trafficking Secretariat, Madam Abena Annobea Asare, the Director of Department of Children, Mrs. Florence Ayisi Quartey, the Director General of Economic and Organise Crime Office (EOCO), COP/Mrs. MYT Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, DCOP Kweku Adjei, the Deputy Comptroller General of Immigration, Mr. Isaac Alortey, among others
The training comes after the Government of Ghana has taken several steps to address the challenges posed by the 1998 Children’s Act; the 2005 Human Trafficking Act amended in 2009 through which the Human Trafficking Secretariat and specialized law enforcement units were created and the National Plan Of Action (NPA) for the elimination of human trafficking in Ghana from 2017 to 2021.
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