The Central Region Highway Patrol Team last Sunday arrested a 26-year-old man suspected to be a child trafficker for allegedly attempting to traffic 21 children from Ekumfi in the Central Region to Accra.
The suspect, Daniel Essel, was arrested at Gomoa Dunkwa, also in the Central Region, when he attempted to traffic the children whose ages range from two to 17.
The Public Relations Officer of the Central Regional Police Command, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mrs Irene Oppong, told the Daily Graphic in Cape Coast yesterday that Essel was arrested in a Hyundai Grace vehicle, with registration number GW 6076-17, about 4.30 p.m. that day and had been sent to the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Police Service for further investigations.
Child trafficking
Mrs Oppong said the children, 12 girls and nine boys, had been sent to a shelter and would be brought back to the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department of the police for further investigations.
Many children are vulnerable to human trafficking due to economic hardships.
Some are subjected to forced child labour within Ghana in the areas of fishing, domestic service, street hawking, begging, pottering, quarrying, artisanal gold mining and agriculture.
Ghanaian girls, and to a lesser extent, boys, are also subjected to sex trafficking within Ghana.
A community-level baseline prevalence study conducted by Free the Slaves in 20 communities in 2016 found that 35 per cent of households in the surveyed communities had a victim of trafficking or trafficking-like conditions.
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