Ghanaian police announced on Friday that they foiled an attempt by a human trafficking syndicate in Accra to send 18 Nigerian girls to Europe to work as prostitutes.
The police raid was made possible by the undercover work of a journalist who has been investigating human trafficking for more than eight months.
Once his investigation over, Anas Aremeyaw Anas gave the police a tip-off which led to the arrest of about a dozen suspected traffickers and the rescuing of the girls.
Deputy director general of Criminal Investigations Department, Ken Yeboah, told journalists police had evidence that the girls were first taken to Accra to get Ghanaian passports to travel to Europe.
Several other girls from West African countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo have already been sent to Europe via Ghana as a transit point, Yeboah added.
Yeboah said investigations were being hampered because the 'rescued' girls are refusing to cooperate, while the police has launched a manhunt to arrest the mastermind behind the traffickers.
Humans For Sale! ‘Dons’ Exposed!
Crusading Guide - Six teenage girls sit on a bench in front of a house built with wooden scraps and corrugated roofing sheets at Abossey Okai, a suburb of Accra. From time to time, one of them runs her fingers through her hair and bites her finger nails. Another yawns, followed by a deep sigh from the other. But their boredom would soon be eased.
They have already been sold to pimps in Europe. Next week Wednesday they would be gone, ‘smuggled’ through Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport (KIA) to their pimps.The Crusading Guide’s eight month-long investigations have uncovered a complex web of thriving human trafficking business in Ghana where the ‘dons’ lure Nigerian, Togolese, Beninois and Burkinabe young girls and sell them into prostitution in Europe after hiding them at secret locations in the Greater Accra and Central Regions of Ghana.
The places where they are hidden include McCarthy Hill, Abossey Okai Zongo, Bethlehem City, Adom City, Budumburam Refugee Camp, Big Apple among others. The girls, mostly minors, are exploited in different ways and employed to perpetrate criminal activities in Europe. They are also often used in pornographic movie acting.The trafficking of these girls in Ghana has always been shrouded in secrecy for the past years. It however, recently took a dramatic twist as profits soared. The business has been institutionalized as the ‘dons’ now rent apartments and camps to hide the many girls, taking advantage of the lack of enforcement of anti-human trafficking laws.
“In the last few months we have trafficked over one thousand girls mainly from Nigeria and Benin through our Ghana route; the market is very good, the officers understand the business”, said Baba, one of the traffickers who was talking to this reporter disguised as a rich businessman wanting to send some girls to Italy.Most of these girls end up dying while serving their ‘mamas’ (Queen Pimps). Before they set off for the trip, they are made to swear an oath of secrecy in a shrine, where they promise never to reveal their mission to anyone.
Luisa, (not her real name) one of the many girls who was trafficked to Italy through Ghana, told this reporter in Benin City, Nigeria, that most of her friends died in Italy as they engaged in this sex trade.“I used to sleep with over 25 men a day. When I became fed up and decided not to work, my madam in Turin (one of her three bases in Italy) beat me up with a belt. She would also starve me and threaten me with deportation.
A lot of my friends died at the Rome and Milan bases where we used to rotate. We went through a lot of mental torture and physical abuse right from Ghana. The traffickers were sleeping with us at their whim. I was raped several times and have undergone several crude abortions”, she continued. At this stage, Luisa then ran her hand through her hair, bowed and showed a big scar in her scalp.“It was stitched in Milan after Cardozo, one of the foolish men who used to violently rape me, hit my head with a broken bottle’, she narrated at her house in Benin City. Luisa also disclosed how Ghanaian security officials helped her group of 16 girls to cross to Spain, France and Italy.
Luisa’s indictment of Ghanaian security officials is supported by evidence available to the Crusading Guide. Investigations indicated that some security officials at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) had been doing brisk business by illegally charging fees to allow the trafficked girls to use the country’s airport as transit to their destinations in Europe to carry out their sex trade.Orakwe Arinze, spokesman for the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP), told this reporter in his Abuja office, Nigeria, that his country was fighting to uproot human trafficking, adding that shelters had been built in the major States in Nigeria where victims are given support and also equipped with skills to move on in life.
Babandede, Director of Investigations for NAPTIP, maintained that his country’s security agencies were on a high alert to weed out traffickers, hence the prosecution of many of them in recent times. ‘We are breaking through their syndicate’, he added.How some Ghanaian security officers help in the sale.At the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), some Ghanaian Immigration officers charge between 1500 and 1000 dollars per girl before they allow traffickers to carry their victims through.
Many of these officers are said to have enriched themselves through this business, which has been nicknamed ‘abacha’. This reporter has obtained video, audio, and still pictures of many immigration officials not only bargaining with him (reporter) on how much money to take, but also explaining how they share the money with some National Security personnel and Aviation Security Officials stationed at the airport. This is a short transcript of what transpired between this reporter and two of the officers.
Immigration officer, Kotoka International Airport, Ghana, discussing a trip with six girls to France and the cost (with reporter disguised as trafficker). Motion picture begins with reporter walking through the bush looking for an immigration official. A tree shows for a while then a hand interrupts the scene as the reporter walks along, billboards of Kotoka International Airport as well as Ghana’s National Flag is shown. Sounds of vehicles and human voices are heard as the reporter keeps moving until he meets the immigration official. At exactly 6mins 23 sec of motion pictures, the conversation begins as follows:
Reporter: I called the boy; he said they are six so how can you reduce the price for us?
Official: But the six, all of them cannot go at the same time, today two, the next three.
Reporter: That’s why we are saying you have to beat the price down.
Official: If all of them go it will backfire.
Reporter: That’s why we are saying that you have to beat the price down. So, if they are six how much will you take?
Official: We are doing the thing individually, that’s why I’m saying all of them cannot go one day. If all of them go one day the thing will backfire, are you getting me? All of them would not go one day. So today two will go, the next day three will go.
Reporter: So what do you recommend, is it the Emirate Airline which is the best or?
Official: So far Emirates is the best so if they are ready the first batch can go next week Sunday because Sunday I will be for post-departure. But as for Saturday I would have said it should start on Saturday but Saturday, no Emirates. Emirates don’t fly on Saturdays.
Reporter: They will go on Sunday.
Official: Sunday, Monday that is next week, some people can go next week Sunday. Then the next two weeks, Monday.
Reporter: So beat the price down so that I can come and see you maybe on Monday. $1,500 is expensive.
Official: (Raises his voice). Do you know, do you know how much they take? We are even considering you and you say $1,500 is too much, so if it’s too much how much will you give me?
Reporter: Is $1,000, okay so that the six would be six thousand. I would just collect the money one time (two, two, two).
Officer: (looks into the skies) $6,000 (and then calculates). Okay, $1000 for each.
Another official surfaces Reporter: Chairman, officer, Sir, well done
Official: Den na ekoso (Twi) meaning what is happening?
Reporter: No, I don’t hear. Am a Nigerian man. I wan see you, I use to fly Virgin Nigeria. My sisters want to fly. They want to go to Germany. (Sound is lost interminently). I want to ask can they go from here?
Official: Are you doubting me?
Reporter: As an officer I cannot doubt you.
Official: Me, if you can pay my money am asking I can carry the whole airport to your house. I can carry. Do you want the critical alarm in your house? Chale come on I can do that.
Reporter: I’ll bring it don’t worry.
Official: I shouldn’t worry. Why should I worry, you are coming.
Reporter: Give me your number.
Official: 0242901439.
Reporter: The name is?
Official: Sam.
Reporter: Sammy.
Official: You can call it anything, am Sam.
Reporter: You see we have someone who has been transporting them but the money is too much, we want to change.
Official: How much are they taking, $1000? And you think I will take less than that? I am taking $1500.
Reporter: (sound breaks) My problem is if the visa is genuine. Can you do it?
Official: What’s your problem? Do you have a problem, so come and show it me. Let’s start business.
Reporter: Thank you, okay.
Official: (As he walks away he asks for my name). What’s your name?
Reporter: Uche, I’ll call you.
Official: Don’t fear.
Meanwhile, the child protection, Specialist of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) Ghana, Eric Appiah Okrah, in a telephone conversation congratulated The Crusading Guide newspaper on the story. He added that UNICEF would stand by the security agencies and government to prosecute offenders.
On his part, the Counter Trafficking Field Manager of the International Organisation for Migration, Eric Boakye Piasah, said that human trafficking needs to be combated in Ghana. “We have to nail the perpetrators and their collaborators and push them out of Ghana. My outfit together with others are doing our part. The general public must join to combat this third lucrative crime in the world”.
Dossier on the queen pimps in Italy, Spain and France
While hanging out with the girls from one restaurant to the other and from one Club to the other as part of the investigations, our reporter came across a dossier of phone numbers belonging to both the traffickers and their accomplices. The dossier has been passed on to the various Missions in Ghana to help track the syndicate in the various countries.
Source: AFP/Crusading Guide
