Through a conspiracy involving some Ghanaians and Nigerians, young female Nigerians are being trafficked to Ghana for sexual exploitation under the guise of getting excellent and well-paying jobs for them in Ghana.
These sex trafficking victims from Nigeria have swamped Ghana’s Eastern Regional capital, Koforidua, as well as some major cities.
Kojo Ansah, the Eastern Regional Correspondent for the EIB, has been researching some of these sex trafficking instances in Koforidua, Ghana’s capital.
The Bula Spot and Little Ben shoes facilities are the two most notorious brothels in Koforidua occupied by an estimated seventy (70) trafficked girls from Nigeria.
The owners of these two places rent out the facilities to the sex traffickers to accommodate their victims and use same as brothels.
Girls as young as 16 years old are smuggled to these two brothels under the pretence of working at restaurants, hotels, shopping malls, and other establishments, only to be coerced into prostitution once they arrive.They are sexually exploited for at least three to four months to repay all travel expenses and other cost before given freedom to operate on their own.
The victims are held captive in these brothels, which are guarded by traffickers’ hired bouncers.
When the victims are given permission to go out for anything urgent, the bouncers accompany them. This is to keep them from fleeing or conversing with strangers. 
When clients demand sexual intercourse in exchange for money, the victims are compelled to sleep during the day and labour at night.These two brothels, located in the centre of Koforidua, feature numerous cubicles where these trafficked females sexually fulfil their clients for payments ranging from Ghc30 each round of sexual intercourse to Ghc100 per round of sexual intercourse.
“Give me Ghc300 for sleep, but short is Ghc30 edis,” one of the exploited females explained.
The victims are not allowed to be taken away by clients, but with a special arrangement of paying at least Ghc300 plus Ghc50 for a bouncer who will police the victim to wherever she will be transported, this may be possible.Monies accrued are paid to the traffickers whom they call “madam”.
While many workers are sleeping in Koforidua at 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, these trafficked girls are awake, standing in front of brothels enticing men to patronise their sexual services.
Traijel, one of the trafficked girls, informed me that she arrived in Ghana three weeks ago through an agency who claimed to have found her a job, only to be coerced into prostitution.
She was hooked to consuming beer and smoking cigarettes in order to sleep with at least five different men every night.Akosua Dadzie was introduced to Traijel as her “madam” by a trafficker who met her in Ghana.
Ghanaian Akosua Dadzie claims to have four of these trafficked females working for her.
Akosua Dadzie is an Accra native, not a Koforidua inhabitant.
Some victims who are unable to bear the trauma of sexual exploitation are able to flee.
The following exchange took place.
Journalist: I’d like to take one of your girls away since sleeping with her here at the brothel makes me uncomfortable. However, she stated that she would not go until I spoke with her.
Akosua (Trafficker ): The fair girl ?
journalist : Yes, Traijel
Akosua : Yes she is one of my four girls but I beg you don’t be angry .That is the instructions I have given to them. She is a stranger she doesn’t know anywhere .I have warned them not to go out with any client. They don’t know any where. Myself I don’t know anywhere.
Journalist : Really?
Akosua : Yes ,I don’t know anywhere. I am from Accra. I rent these place.
Akosua : The girls work for me .They are four (4) .The rest are not my girls.
Journalist : I need special exemption. So what is the arrangement. I want to take her outside.
Akosua : Outside will be difficult
Finally, Ghc300 plus Ghc50 for bouncer to guard the victim to the hotel and bring her back to the brothel was agreed on.
She said “many married men come here to patronize their service .They mostly sleep with them here .The place is not ghetto room”.
Akosua welcomed pretentious proposal to traffick some girls from the village to her for commercial sex exploitation.
“I like the bad girls more because they know much about sex .When they come they will serve for four months. After which they will be independent”.
Trafficked Nigeria Girl impregnated, infected with HIV thrown away.
The investigations uncovered a harrowing condition of trafficked Nigerian girl, Somtooma (not her real name ). Her National Health Insurance card indicates she was born on September 5,2001.
The 20 year old girl was trafficked to Ghana and forced into commercial sex activity however got impregnated, infected with HIV and thrown out to the street .
A good Samaritan Ibrahim Amavor who is also Islamic radio preacher went to the rescue of then hunger-stricken six-month pregnant victim.
“It got to the point that every evening when I went to town from 6:30 to 7 p.m., I saw this girl sitting in traffic on a bench for two weeks in the same clothing, and it kicked my desire to go closer to her.” When I got close to her, I began interviewing her to find out what her problem was, but I discovered she was pregnant…..she told me she didn’t have anywhere to live, and later she told me they were living in one house below Normal Technical. She informed me she was hungry, so I took her home and fed her, and she stayed with me until 9:30 p.m., when I led her home. The next day, I went to work.He continued that , “At the time I met her she was 6 months to 7 months Pregnant .. I asked her where her antenatal card was she told me she doesn’t have .I sent her to the Alata chief but he was very sick so they directed me to Ebo chairman. I went there but he told me he can’t handle it so he gave me a number to call and see the representative of the Nigeria Ambassador in Eastern region so I went to him I explained everything to him with the girl as well and he told me that I should go that he will see us later after discussing the matter in a meeting But he never showed up.
Ibrahim Amevor further said “I consulted one of my legal practitioner and she told me to report to police so I reported and wrote my statement. She gave us her mother’s number to call her but when we called the mother in Nigeria the mother sounded as poor helpless woman. According to the girl if you reach Lagos you will take another bus spend the night before you reach her hometown .
On April 31,2022 , the victim gave birth through Cesarean delivery at the Eastern Regional Hospital but suffered severe puerperal psychosis.
“They admitted us almost one week at the hospital then they discharged us ,even the medical bill was a problem but some benevolent people they helped. After a week she started behaving strangely so I sent her to the hospital but the problem things are not easy what to eat even very difficult.Social welfare couldn’t help us when we went to them”.
Ibrahim Amevor wants the Nigerian High commissioner to Ghana to help rescue and reintegrate many of such sex trafficked girls in Koforidua with their families in Nigeria .
“I am appealing to the Nigeria High Commissioner that there are many things happening on ground. Through this interview I want him to come in so that the child can go back to his family .There many things happening on the ground he can commission some people to come on the ground and see things by themselves before it gets out of hands . Some women have taken upon themselves doing no job but to traffic this young girls .These girls are not from the cities in Nigeria they are from typical villages ”
The Eastern Regional Vice Chairman of Association of Nigerians , Christian Ofor narrated that one of the trafficked girls recently escaped but the Koforidua District Police Command failed to take her statement hence the victim stormed out of the police station and went Accra.
He wants the Ghana Police Service to arrest the kingpins involved in trafficking young girls from Nigeria to Ghana.
US Department of State report on Human Trafficking in Ghana
The 2005 Human Trafficking Act, amended in 2009, criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
The Human Trafficking Act prescribes penalties of a minimum of five years’ imprisonment, which were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape.
Ghana was upgraded from Tier 2 Watch List to a Tier 2 ranking in the 2018 TIP Report on human trafficking. The country is still conducive for human trafficking .
The report pointed out that Government of Ghana does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.
According to the 2021 US Department of State report , government of Ghana maintained anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts.
However, the 2015 regulations for this Act, which are non-discretionary and have the force of law, provided specific guidance on sentencing depending on the circumstances; in general, the term is not less than five years’ imprisonment and not more than 25 years’ imprisonment, but if a parent, guardian, or other person with parental responsibilities facilitates or engages in trafficking, they are liable to a fine, five to 10 years’ imprisonment, or both. By allowing for a fine in lieu of imprisonment, these penalties were not commensurate with those for other serious crimes, such as rape.
Ghana investigated 87 trafficking cases, including 63 labor trafficking and 24 sex trafficking cases, in 2020, compared with investigating 137 cases in 2019.
The government initiated prosecutions of 18 alleged labor traffickers and continued prosecutions of four alleged labor traffickers, compared with prosecutions of 37 defendants in 2019. Additionally, the government prosecuted four defendants for exploitative child labor using the Children’s Act of 1998, compared with five in 2019; in some cases, the government prosecuted trafficking cases under the Children’s Act when there was insufficient evidence of trafficking.
The US Department of State report indicated that, government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials allegedly complicit in human trafficking crimes; however, official corruption and complicity in trafficking remained concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action during the year.
Observers alleged that traffickers operated with the support or acquiescence of law enforcement or justice officials, and that some government officials interfered in law enforcement proceedings.
