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Ghana: Christian Council Calls for Media Partnership
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Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra)
27 March 2008
Posted to the web 27 March 2008
Micheal Addo
The Ghana Christian Council of Ghana has called on the media to partner them in the fight against child-trafficking in the country.
This has been part of the Council's advocacy work in dealing with such an issue, particularly in the Northern and Southern parts of Ghana.
According to the Council, the mobilization of persons less than 18 years of age, for the purpose of exploitation, has been the third recorded criminal activity in the country. This they noted has been uncared for by the nation.
At a press conference in Accra, the Counter-Trafficking Field Manager of International Organization for Migration (IOM), Mr. Eric Boakye Peasah, noted that the traumatic effects of child-trafficking, often remained with children for the rest of their lives, and can hinder their growth and development as adults.
This, he said, infringed on the children's rights to survival, protection and development, and also impedes their development, in areas of mental and physical health, education and nutrition.
He explained that child-trafficking is always in a form of labour and sexual exploitation, military conscription, forced marriage, illicit adoption, delinquent behaviour, begging and trafficking in organs.
He said that victims of this activity were normally "people with extreme poverty background, those with lack of economic opportunities, low level of education, social and gender discriminations, humanitarian and natural disasters, deprivation of care, drug addiction, broken families, and those from armed conflict environment and civil unrest."
These children, according to Mr. Peasah, find themselves in industries such as farming, fishing, domestic servitude, mining, portering, scavenging, stone-quarrying, brick-making, shopkeeping and camel jockeying.
He also noted that not all trafficking occur in the same way, and that the local context and specific situation would determine who was being exploited.
The Field Manager indicated that people get involved in trafficking business, due to the fact that it was one of the most lucrative crimes in the world.
He said that the victims might be aware that they are to be employed in a given activity, but did not know the conditions surrounding it, adding "they are lured by promises of employment and financial gain, and are fully deceived as to the true intention of the traffickers." As a result, he said, they are routed to where the demand exists for their services, and where the potential profit of their exploitation is the highest.
Mr. Peasah added that the traffickers do all these things for the sole purpose of personal gain, often to make large amounts of money from their exploitation, and obtain free services and labour.
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To prevent this, he called for a continuous education and sensitisation campaigns, and the need to raise awareness of the potential dangers, and risks involved in it.
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