A 60-year-old man is in the grips of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Volta Regional Police Command in Ho for allegedly attempting to traffic some six children at Kpassa in the Nkwanta North district.
The suspect, Eric Akwesi Amponsah, was arrested last Friday, June 30, by the police upon a tip off at the Kpassa lorry station on board an Accra bound Metro Mass bus with the minors, aged between 10 and 17 years.
Inspector Joseph Nakoja, Head of the Police Anti-Human trafficking Unit, who disclosed this to Starr News, said the suspect comes from Dunkwa-on-offin in the Central Region, where he was going to give out the children to interested cocoa farmers.
According to him, “Police received information that a man was on board an Accra bound Metro Mass bus and has some six children with him, three boys and three girls.
“The informant said he suspected the children might have been trafficked, because the man was trying to comfort the children not to be depressed travelling with him. So based on that we intercepted the bus, arrested the man and rescued the children.”
Inspector Nakoja added that, the suspect during interrogation confirmed, he had earlier taken nine other children between May and early June this year from the same area to the Central region, where they are engaged on cocoa farms and galamsey sites, with a promise of paying them Ghc1,200 each at the end of the cocoa season.
“When we interrogated him further, he claimed that in May and early June, he recruited children from the same area on two occasions. The first instance, he recruited five children and the second instance, four children and they are all farming in Dunkwa-on-offin.
“So this is the third time he came to recruit these children to again release them to interested cocoa farmers and he even said some are even into this galamsey business,” the Police chief explained.
Inspector Joseph Nakoja, however, indicated that, suspect Eric Amponsah who was arraigned before a Ho Circuit Court on Wednesday has since been remanded into custody to assist with further investigations, in order to trace the exact communities where he recruited the six children and also go to Dunkwa-on-offin to rescue the other nine children he sent there.
Meanwhile, the six rescued children are under the care of the Police Anti-Human trafficking Unit in Ho, as efforts are made to trace their families.
