RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS ON TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS

UNCLAS ACCRA 000605

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR G/TIP LINDA BROWN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ASEC EAID ELAB GH KCRM KFRD KWMN PHUM PREF SMIG
SUBJECT: RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS ON TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
REPORT FOR GHANA

REF: A. ACCRA 00433


B. E-MAIL FROM LINDA BROWN INL/G/TIP 3/08/05


1. This message is keyed to questions raised (ref B)
regarding post's draft 2005 Trafficking in Persons (TIP)
report (ref A).


2. Question: Please state the number of trafficking victims
processed through Accra's shelters/children's homes in 2004.

Ghana's Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment reports
that its single operational shelter saved 28 trafficked
children during 2004. The children, all housed at the Osu
Children's Home in Accra, ranged in ages from 8 to 17 years
of age. Seven other trafficking victims at the shelter had
reached the age of majority by the time they were rescued.
Two more entered the shelter in January 2005. Among these 37
victims were 11 Togolese, one Nigerian and one Sierra
Leonean. The remainder were Ghanaian. Twenty-two have already
been reunited with their families.

In the Greater Accra Region, a second shelter has been
renovated and will begin accepting children this year at
Medina near Legon.


3. Question: Please state the total number of child
trafficking victims rescued in 2004, both for internal and
international trafficking.

The Government of Ghana keeps no official statistics of the
number of trafficking victims rescued. However, the
International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the GOG
documented a total of 590 child victims being rescued in

2004. Of these 590 victims, 18 were internationally
trafficked Ghanaian children returned to Ghana and 12 were
foreign children rescued in Ghana.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM),with GOG
support, rescued 544 trafficked children in 2004 of which 430
have been successfully reintegrated into their families. All
of these children were Ghanaian. In addition, 18
internationally trafficked Ghanaian children were returned in
2004 (12 from The Gambia and 6 from Nigeria).


4. Question: Is the arrest of Chinese national Lin Xianghan
truly considered a trafficking case, or is it being treated
as alien smuggling?

On February 21, the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) arrested
Lin Xianglan, a 45-year-old Chinese national who conspired
with her husband in the People's Republic of China to smuggle
Chinese to Ghana through a fraudulent business she set up in
the Ghana Free Zones. These aliens were promised that they
would be eventually taken to the U.S. in exchange for
payments of 10,000 USD. Instead several ended up working on
farms in the Volta Region where they were told they should
work until their departure could be arranged. GIS deported
Xianglan and all of the Chinese aliens involved in the matter
in early March. GIS Director Elizabeth Adjei confirmed to us
that this was a case of alien smuggling, not trafficking, as
was reported in the local press.
YATES