Government provides GH ¢ 1 million support to combat human trafficking

Business news for Thursday, September 3, 2020

Source: GNA

2020-09-03

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The government has given GH ¢ 1 million to the Fund Against Human Trafficking to help combat the threat in the country.

Ghana has rescued, supported and cared for 611 victims of human trafficking since 2019, of whom 200 were children and 411 were adults.

The Government has also provided shelter for victims of human trafficking and facilitated the processes for reuniting with their families.

Human trafficking is an act of recruiting, transporting, trading or receiving a person within and outside national borders for the purpose of exploitation.

Ghana is at Level Two of the Trafficking in Persons Classification. Tier Two countries are those whose governments do not fully meet the minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) 2000, but are making significant efforts to meet those standards.

Addressing journalists at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra on Wednesday, Ms Cynthia Maamle Morrison, Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, said that her team, for the past three and a half years, had organized dialogues and community awareness to raise awareness about human trafficking and irregular migration.

The Ministry had held durbars in traditional areas where 75 traditional leaders pledged their support to combat the threat.

On supporting the poor and vulnerable, Ms. Morrison announced that a total of 1,451,656 extremely poor households registered with the Livelihoods Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) program and had been paid GH ¢ 334,084.00 five cash grant cycles.

In addition, 73 percent of LEAP beneficiaries were registered in the National Health Insurance Plan (NHIS), with 5,522 people linked to productive socio-economic activities.