By Dennis Peprah,
Sampa (B/R), Oct. 17, GNA – The Jaman North District Directorate of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development has rescued two Togolese minors who were trafficked for exploitative work in the district.
Mr Abdulai Stephen Dapaah, the Jaman North District Director of the Department in the Bono Region, said the two minors were trafficked into Ghana for child labour but were rescued at some cashew production communities in the district.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Sampa, a Ghana-Ivory Coast border town, Mr Dapaah said with support from other relevant institutions, the children had been sent back to their families in Togo.
He expressed concern over the increasing reports in cases of child-trafficking in the area and said the lack of logistics hindered the department’s ability to get to the hard-to-reach
communities where cases were prevalent. Many of those suspected cases involved children between 12 and 15 years, trafficked from Togo to work on cashew plantations, Mr Dapaah said.
He appealed to the Government and development partners to provide the department with a pickup vehicle and motorbikes to enable personnel to visit the traffic-prone communities to rescue the victims.
Mr Dapaah said because there were several unapproved routes in the border communities, human traffickers outwitted security agencies in their efforts to prevent children being trafficked.
Besides transportation, he added that the department also required an office, stationery, and other equipment to facilitate its work, as well as a shelter to keep suspected trafficked victims.
Teenage pregnancy and parental neglect, Mr Dapaah said, were the other daunting challenges the district faced and, therefore, appealed for support to intensify public education to bring the situation under control.
GNA