Challenging Heights rescues 41 children from trafficking
Child trafficking and forced labour are problems in Ghana. Data from the Ghana Statistical Service indicate that 1.9 million children aged 5-17 are engaged in child labour, with 1.2 million of the children engaged in hazardous labour.
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A report on the Trafficking in Persons Report at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., released in June this year, has classified Ghana as a Tier 2 Watch List country.
Minimum standards
This means that for the second year in a row, Ghana is classified as a country that does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons and failed to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in the past year.
According to the report, key factors in Ghana’s Tier 2 Watch List ranking include no demonstrable increase in prosecution efforts or assistance to victims; zero trafficking convictions in 2015; a decrease in the number of victims identified in the past year; inadequate funding and training for law enforcement and prosecutors; inadequate funding for victim protection and support services; insufficient stringent penalties for trafficking; and reports of increased corruption and bribery in the judicial system, which hindered anti-trafficking measures.
The 2015 Trafficking in Persons (TiP) report deemed the government’s efforts insufficient to tackle the problem of hundreds of thousands of people trapped in modern slavery; including an estimated 21,000 children trapped in hazardous labour on the Lake Volta.
Challenging Heights, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Winneba in the Central Region, rescued 41 children, in 2015, from working on the Lake Volta and also cared for a total of 118 survivors of trafficking and provided comprehensive medical, psychological, physical, social and educational rehabilitation at its shelter during that period.
2015 Annual Report
According to the organisation’s 2015 Annual Report made available to the Daily Graphic, 74 children were reintegrated with their families after spending between three and 9 months at the shelter and continuous monitoring was provided for 82 children, with staff of the NGO following up at home and in school and providing educational support and materials.
In the report, the President of Challenging Heights, Mr James Kofi Annan, said through targeted awareness programmes, knowledge and understanding about trafficking and child rights had increased in Winneba and its surrounding areas.
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“We reached thousands of vulnerable and underserved people in 2015 by not only directly saving children but empowering their families and wider communities to bring about long-term systematic change,” he added.
Mr Annan said the organisation’s Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme (WEEP) supported 254 carers of vulnerable children through the provision of loans and training in various skills.
“We inaugurated a smoke house with 56 smoke ovens to be used by local women’s cooperatives, with an additional 30 women provided with oven racks for use at home. The construction of the Challenging Heights Cold-Store that will underpin the whole WEEP site was started last year and is due for completion,” he said.
Mr Annan said Challenging Heights School supported over 720 children in 2015 while the organisation’s Youth Empowerment Programme (YEP) trained 124 young men and 114 young women in ICT, leadership and business with 108 entering apprenticeships, finding employment or accessing further education.
He noted that the organisation sought to protect and improve the lives of young people and communities affected by child trafficking and the worst forms of child labour.
Mr Annan urged the government to increase its efforts in prosecuting trafficking offenders and also provide funds for the Human Trafficking Fund, the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Police Service and government shelters which were in deplorable states.