The Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service has rescued 42 victims who had been forced into commercial sex work. The operation, conducted in partnership with Challenging Heights, an anti-trafficking NGO, revealed a disturbing trend of teenagers being lured into Ghana and exploited.
The victims, aged between 13 and 17, included a 14-year-old girl who, despite being pregnant, was still compelled to engage in sex work. Reports indicate that on a typical day, the girls were made to sleep with between 10 and 20 men to meet daily financial targets of GHS 1,000 to GHS 1,500, under threat of starvation and physical abuse.
James Kofi Annan, Chief Executive Officer of Challenging Heights, explained that the victims were recruited from low-income households in Nigeria’s Enugu, Imo, and Akwa Ibom states, under false promises of decent employment and stable income. Thirty-six of the rescued victims have been admitted to the Challenging Heights Anti-Human Trafficking Rehabilitation Centre, while the remainder are in police custody following their rescue from mining communities in the Western North Region.
In 2025 alone, Challenging Heights, in collaboration with state security agencies, rescued 201 victims of human trafficking, bringing the total number of victims rescued through the organisation’s operations to 2,930. According to James Kofi Anan, CEO of Challenging Heights, most of the rescued victims are Nigerian nationals.
Apart from calling on the Ghanaian government to provide adequate funding to state security to tackle human trafficking, he equally called on Nigerian authorities to take action. “I will like to call on the Nigerian government to look at addressing this issue of its citizens being trafficked into Ghana. It is becoming a worrying trend where every year, hundreds of Nigerians are trafficked into Ghana and many of them forced into prostitution and cybercrime,” he stated.
With galamsey creating an enabling environment for commercial sex activities and other forms of vices, James Kofi Anan also emphasized that a successful fight against illegal mining will partially address human trafficking.
Source: Akwasi Addo
