Global Issues

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Ghana

• Country of origin, transit, and destination for women and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.

• Ghanaian girls, and to a lesser extent boys, are subjected to prostitution within Ghana.

• Coastal areas may be destinations for international child sex tourists.

• Ghanaian women and children recruited and transported to Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, South Africa, the United States, and countries in Western Europe for forced labor and sex trafficking.

• Women and girls, voluntarily migrating from China, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Benin, and possibly Romania are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation after arriving in Ghana.

• In 2010, 318 reports of rape and reported 158 arrests, 101 prosecutions, and three convictions; 224 cases remained uninvestigated at year’s end.

• Rural women and men suspected of witchcraft banished to “witch camps.”

• 20.6% of women in Ghana report intimate partner physical violence in their lifetime.

• 8.2% of women report sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetime.

• 36.6 of women report intimate partner and/or non-partner physical violence in their lifetime.

• 18.8 of women report intimate partner and/or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

• 14.9% reported forced first sex.

• 5.2% reported abuse during pregnancy.

 

Advocacy:

• Ministries of Women and Children’s Affairs, with funding from an international organization, is reportedly developing system for referring trafficking victims to protective facilities.

• Anas Aremeyaw Anas, a reporter with an independent Ghanaian newspaper, broke two major trafficking rings in Accra. He worked undercover for eight months, exposing the ring’s methods of transportation and the identities of immigration officials who were accepting bribes in return for overlooking fake visas and passports.

 

Sources: UN Women Violence against Women Prevalence Data:  Surveys  by  Country 2011; U.S. Department of State 2010 Human Rights Report, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2011; U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2008