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Slavery today as bad as 400 years ago - US Ambassador Jackson
Victims of human trafficking are “trapped in a hell of forced labour, forced servitude and many cases prostitution."
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Speaking at the launch of the UN Day Against Human Trafficking in Accra, Ambassador Jackson spoke of his deep passion for ending today's modern-day slavery, which more than one hundred thousand Ghanaian men, women and children fall victim to, he said.
“It is just as bad as the slavery we knew 400 years ago.”
People were lured with false promises of well-paying work in foreign lands,”then arrive to find themselves exploited, and abused in domestic servitude or forced prostitution, and not just women, but men too,” he told the audience of Government, media and NGOs workers at the event on Wednesday July 13.
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He also spoke of the Kayayei women who come from the North of Ghana to Accra in search of work, but sometimes end up as victims of sex trafficking.
“We need to be outraged about it,” he said.
He spoke of victims “being trapped in a hell of forced labour, forced servitude and many cases prostitution."
The USA was focused on helping NGOs and the Ghana Government to eliminate trafficking, and was particularly focused on the cocoa, fishing and mining industries.
He called on the Ghana Government to do more to combat trafficking, referring to the recent US report on trafficking across the globe where all countries are rated.
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Ghana was ranked at tier 2 putting it on a watch list, as it did not meet the minimum standards for combating trafficking - it failed to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking.
He said the report found 2015 was “irrevocably marred” by the lack of prosecutions, and the number of victim identified decreased.
Government inaction could lead Ghana to lose funds from the US, he added, however, he said the US was not threatening Ghana.
“I am asking for the Government of Ghana, the NGOs and all of you to work with us and work with one another to address this," Ambassador Jackson said.
Addressing the United States' own history of slavery, Ambassador Jackson said: "Slavery was legal in the United States...it was a shameful period in our history and we are still feeling the repercussions today,” he said.
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“We have modern day slavery, it is as wrong today as it was hundreds of years ago.”
Also at the event was Victoria Natsu from the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection. As acting Executive Secretary of the Human Trafficking Secretariat she said women and children make up 75 percent of all trafficked people in the world.
“Human trafficking is a lucrative business for traffickers. It is currently the second largest trade in the world after drugs,” she said.
Since Ghana implemented the Human Trafficking Act of 2005, Natsu said the Ministry was working to train units in the Ghana police and immigration officers to help identity, prevent and prosecute offenders of trafficking.
She said reducing poverty in Ghana would also protect vulnerable people from falling victim to trafficking and slavery.
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She said the tier 2 watch list ranking showed Ghana needed to “improve in all areas of prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership to combat trafficking in a decisive manner.”
The event also featured a short play by Ghana's Curious Minds group, which outlined how poverty could draw a young woman into being trafficked and enslaved in the Middle East.
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