The Cape Coast Metropolitan Director of Social Welfare, Mr Daniel Wallace Akyeampong, said in an interview that “Some of the boys are even not able to pay the girls. They have sex with the girls on credit and beat them when they demand for the payment.”

According to him, the situation was putting many young girls at risk of contracting dangerous sexually transmitted diseases, as “They are hungry and are ready to do anything to survive.”

Mr Akyeampong made this known after a press conference by Friends of the Nation to mark the World Day Against Child Labour.

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He said that poverty was increasing in the fishing communities including Brofoyedur, Ntsin, Gyeagyemu, Gyeagyeano, Anaafo and Kwaprow, near the University of Cape Coast.

He indicated that children are neglected in such communities and they are, therefore, forced to enter into prostitution to make a living.

Mr Akyeampong called on stakeholders, especially the traditional authorities, to intervene and help curtail the menace.

On his part, Mr Kwesi Johnson of Friends of the Nation said Ghana had, for two consecutive years, been listed on the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) tier two, spanning January 2014 to December 2015.

“If the story should remain the same over January to December 2016, Ghana will automatically be downgraded to tier three on the TIP Watch list. That is when the sanctions come in,” he noted.

He believed that the establishment of efficient enforcement and support programmes could help reduce the problem.