Comptroller of Immigration Kwame Takyi
Over 30 Ghanaian girls thought to be Saudi Arabia-bound were last Saturday stopped for questioning by Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) officers at the Aflao frontier.
The girls have been arriving via a popular Nigerian transport company which plies the Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigerian route.
It is thought that the movement of the girls is the trick adopted by the employment agencies to beat the suspension of their business by the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
It would be recalled that the ministry recently suspended the employment of girls in the Gulf countries by job agencies until further notice.
There have been many complaints about the inhuman treatments these girls suffer when they work in the residences of their Arab employers in the Gulf countries.
Some of these girls find it almost impossible to return home when they want to do so because their travel documents are confiscated as soon as they land in the Gulf countries.
An anonymous GIS officer told DAILY GUIDE that “there has been a steady movement of Ghanaian girls to Aflao en route to Benin Republic or Nigeria where they are expected to fly out to Saudi Arabia.”
Their young ages and sheer number prompted the GIS officers, who upon examining their passports discovered a worrying trend: all of them bore Saudi Arabia visas obtained from Accra.
An official of the mission told DAILY GUIDE that “we cannot deny them visas because they satisfy all the important requirements such as documentary parental consent and the like.”
While vigilant GIS officers are stopping these girls from moving out when they suspect human trafficking, it is fact that many more have been sent out to go and suffer in the homes of rich but wicked Arab businessmen.
Advertisements have been blaring on the airwaves about the goodies in the Gulf States for Ghanaian workers, especially girls.
No sooner have they arrived in these places than they regret their decisions but it is often too late.
By A.R. Gomda