Be Wary Of Fake Recruitment Agencies

The Ashanti Regional Commander of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Regina Mintah, has advised parents to be wary of unscrupulous recruitment agencies who lure girls �into slavery�, under the guise of providing them with lucrative employment abroad. She expressed worry about the practice, pointing out that these girls and their relatives pay huge sums of money to the fake recruitment agencies who promise to secure them employments abroad, but end up selling them into slavery, prostitution and other inhuman treatment in countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Azerbaijan. ASP Mintah, was who speaking to the Daily Graphic in Kumasi, noted that the monitoring by her outfit had indicated that most of the girls were recruited by these fake agencies from Ejisu, Effiduase, Juaben, Kumawu, Bodomase and Dawereso, all in the Ashanti Region. Genuine agencies She said although there were genuine recruitment agencies which were involved in genuine work, a lot more bogus agencies had joined the fray and had been luring unsuspecting young persons into slavery abroad. She paid tribute to SEWA Foundation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that had been rescuing the girls from these countries, but noted that some of the girls and young women had come back to Ghana with mental challenges, diseases, pregnancies and bodily scars. ASP Regina Mintah said her outfit, although constrained by lack of resources, had in recent times received many rescued persons from the SEWA Foundation and other sources, while some of them were suffering rape, forced into prostitution, maimed or imprisoned for various reasons, or even killed. Financial constraint She said due to financial constraints, the unit had gone through difficulty reintegrating them into the society or sending them back to their families, and, therefore, called on corporate institutions, philanthropists and other public-spirited individuals to support the Ashanti Regional Command of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service to deal with the increasing number of trafficking cases both within and from outside. She said they would collaborate with other organisations to increase the education and campaign against human trafficking, adding that when people were educated, they would hardly fall prey to such traffickers. Sensitisation ASP Mintah said her unit had started sensitisation programmes in churches and with traditional rulers about trafficking, pointing out that investigations had also revealed that although most of the victims paid money they did not demand offer letters before travelling to those countries. The President of the SEWA Foundation, Mr Jones Owusu Yeboah, said his recent trips to those countries where the girls were sent to revealed that, majority of the victims had the desire to return home but the processes involved had made it almost impossible for them to return. He said the foundation was only able to free those whose indebtedness to the so-called agents were paid.