Chioma Sabina Abaraonye
The police in Tamale, the Northern Regional capital, have arrested a certain Chioma Sabina Abaraonye, 31, for allegedly bringing young ladies to Ghana from Nigeria to engage in prostitution.
She was nabbed in a joint Ghana Immigration Service (GIS)/Ghana Police Service (GPS) operation after one of her victims fled from her and reported the matter to the law enforcement agency.
When she successfully brought in two ladies (names withheld) aged 23 and 26, one of them fled and exposed her human trafficking business to the police in Tamale, resulting in her arrest in the joint operation.
She is said to lure the unsuspecting girls that there are opportunities for sales girls in Ghana, but it is only when the victims arrive that the reality of prostitution is made evident to them.
The mostly Nigerian females are trafficked through the Aflao border into Ghana.
According to one of the victims, upon arrival in Ghana they were transported to Tamale, where they were coerced into engaging in prostitution.
She said their Ghanaian boyfriends took their hairs, part of their nails and compelled them to take an oath of secrecy not to report to the security agents lest they die.
The frustrated looking victim said they were made to sleep with men daily and account for the monies they make to their madam by the end of each day. Failure to bring at least GH¢100 could result in punishment.
The victim said she was tired with the maltreatment by the suspect and her boyfriend and wanted to go back to Nigeria.
“I came to report the case because I want to go back to Nigeria; I can’t use my body to make money for somebody and I want her to return my phone and the hair, nails she took from me,” she insisted.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 children are trafficked each year for forced labour and sexual exploitation in West and Central Africa.
The Assistant Commissioner of Immigration, Northern Region, E. Kofi Owusu, told journalists that the victims were forced to engage in prostitution in order to repay their madam for the expenses she claimed to have incurred in bring them to Ghana.
Each of the girls was expected to pay back an amount of GH¢8,000 as expenses.
He indicated that the two victims had been transported to the Ghana Immigration Headquarters in Accra as the suspect is on admission at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, where she is recuperating from an abortion following her arrest. She would be sent to Accra upon her discharge even as her boyfriend is on the run.
FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale