Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey
The story about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration working hard to repatriate 431 stranded citizens to Ghana from the United Arab Emirates is worrying.
Even more worrying is the fact that some of the stranded persons are children. When the state has to step into matters which were created by the victims of scam and scammers, it is depressing to think that this is at a cost to the public kitty at a time of financial crisis.
Of course the state cannot fold its arms as citizens endure tribulations in a foreign land, the source of the challenge notwithstanding.
We would be quick to, however, add that it would look like we have not done much to stem the activities of unscrupulous travel and so-called foreign employment agents who continue to fleece unsuspecting persons of their hard-earned monies.
We do not remember the state lifting the ban on such trips to the Gulf Region by prospective employees. Following nasty stories about Ghanaian female workers being subjected to sex slavery by their bosses in some of the Gulf countries, government decided a few years ago to place a ban on the ventures.
The announcement has, however, been largely ignored and this reality demands that the targets of the fake employment opportunities should rather be targeted for effect. When this bracket of Ghanaians is sufficiently educated about the non-existent jobs for which they are made to pay so much, they would turn their back on the schemers.
Ignorance is doing a lot of harm to people. The large number of unemployed Ghanaian youth constitutes a large quarry for the schemers. These vulnerable persons turn to their parents and other relatives to part with monies, some of which are borrowed to facilitate their travel to countries they are told are flowing with bread and honey. This they learn when it is too late, a mendacious story by which time their monies are gone.
The humiliation of living in a detention camp not knowing one’s fate is sufficient ordeal for these persons. To Ghana as a country, pictures of her citizens being detained for straying into a foreign country under dubious circumstances does not do our international image any good at all.
We should do more to break the back of those who hoodwink unsuspecting Ghanaians into falling into such wicked traps of employment and travel agents.
They have so many ruses in their arsenals and are therefore, able to throw up fresh ones when the need arises.
The relevant state agents should be on the lookout for such mischievous elements before they reach out to unsuspecting persons. Channels of advertisement of the employment tricks should be told not to accept such advertisements. Those who breach this should be sanctioned.
When the stranded persons are eventually returned, they should assist investigators to identify the agents who cheated them with a view to prosecuting such persons. Deterrence is important in such matters otherwise the misdeed would continue.