Combating Human Trafficking: An Assessment Of The National Policies On Eliminating human Trafficking In Ghana

ABSTRACT

Despite efforts to counter human trafficking, it is still an issue of global concern. However, most of the works on human trafficking have focused on challenges, health implication on victims, its threats to national security and transnational human trafficking activities with little attention on the implementation plans of the policies, legal and institutional frameworks that govern the Act. This research examined how policies, specifically the National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Human Trafficking in Ghana, have curbed trafficking in persons and its implications in Ghana. The specific objectives were to trace the history and provide a descriptive analysis of the policies relevant for managing human trafficking in Ghana, to assess the policy guidelines and legal instruments for eliminating human trafficking in Ghana, to examine the role of state and nonstate actors in abetting the implementation of the policies that tackle human trafficking in Ghana. The study made use of both primary sources, thus conducted interviews with ten relevant stakeholders and secondary sources of data which included Policies, Acts and Legal frameworks like The National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Human Trafficking of 2017, The Human Trafficking Act of 2005; Act 694, The Children‟s Act of 1998, Act 560, The Ghana Immigration Law, and The National Migration Policy. The study revealed that the Government of Ghana has made concerted efforts to combat human trafficking in Ghana. Since the formulation of the National Plan of Action, Ghana has moved from the Tier 2 watch list to Tier 2. This means that their effort to combat human trafficking has successfully increased. Its implementation has also effectively enforced partnership and collaboration amongst stakeholder institutions in their quest to combat this canker. It also revealed that state and non-state actors have played very important roles in dealing with human 5 trafficking. This year the government of Ghana established rescue centres for victims of trafficking. Again, all government security organizations, Ghana Immigration Service and Ghana Police Service, have developed compulsory training curricular for all their officers, both new recruits and old, to tackle issues on human trafficking. However, despite these achievements, the study discovered some institutional challenges relating to funding, community sensitization, victim identification, reintegration and prosecution of perpetrators in dealing with policy implementation. It is therefore recommended that policies enacted on human trafficking should be reviewed and harmonized, and the international laws ratified, to avoid duplication and confusion. If at the end of the five year period, the National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Human Trafficking‟s implementation is achieved, it should be extended.