Human trafficking generates US$32 bn annually - According to ILO sources

Page 48: Daily Graphic, June 24, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that US$32 billion is generated annually from human trafficking worldwide.
This has made human trafficking one of the fastest-growing illegal businesses after arms and drugs.
The Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Frank Adu-Poku, made this known in Accra yesterday at the opening of a workshop on counter-trafficking in human beings and other related crimes for detectives at the CID headquarters. The four-day workshop is being funded by the UNICEF.
He said human trafficking had become a growing concern throughout the world today and no country was exempted, saying, “Ghana is known as an origin, a transit and a destination country as far as human trafficking is concerned.”
Mr Adu-Poku said human trafficking was a modern-day form of slavery in which victims were subjected to force, fraud or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labour.
He described trafficking in persons as an aspect of irregular or negative migration that had come to the fore as a negative side of globalisation.
According to him, it was regrettable that Ghanaian children had become fisher boys not only in areas around the Volta Lake but faraway in The Gambia, Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire and also made to work in stone quarries under hazardous conditions detrimental to their health and total development.
Mr Adu-Poku said governments were stepping up their efforts to address the root causes of human trafficking and develop counter measures.
He said it was in line with this that the Police Administration was collaborating with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to provide tailor-made training programmes for personnel of the police service to nip the social menace in the bud.
The Director of the Organised Crime Unit (OCU) of the CID, Superintendent Sarfo Agyemang, reminded the personnel to take all training programmes seriously because it would come in handy when they were posted to the regions and districts.