Preventing modern slavery in Ghana: A case for a district modern slavery league table in Ghana

Abstract

The 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana under Article 36 mandates governments to take all necessary action to ensure freedoms, happiness and welfare of Ghanaians. In pursuit of this constitutional provision, the state has equally enacted several laws and policies to promote sustainable development, social inclusion and to safeguard the rights and freedoms of citizens. The Ghana Children's Act, 1998 (Act 560) is the parent law that protects the rights of children. There is also the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651) which protects the rights of workers. The Domestic Violence Act, 2007, (Act 732) protects the rights of women, children, and men against violence in domestic relationships, whilst the Human Trafficking Act, 2005 (Act 694) and the Human Trafficking (Amendment) Act, 2009 (Act 784) prescribe appropriate punitive punishment for persons who traffic persons. Despite all these laws, the 2021 population and housing census statistics in Ghana revealed that 230,000 (3.2%) children within the age group of 5-14 years were engaged in economic activities. This revelation therefore motivated the researcher to find out the reasons for the rise in the incidence of modern slavery cases in Ghana and what ought to be done to stem the situation. The researcher therefore sampled four regions, eight districts and twenty-five communities in Ghana where modern slavery incidences are endemic and collected data from household members and key informants from media houses, CSOs and government institutions. The findings established that knowledge of household members of modern slavery was generally high. As high as 79% had knowledge of child labour, 71% had knowledge of forced marriage, 68% forced labour, 40% sexual abuse, 36% unfair contracts and 32% domestic servitude. The finding also identified poverty as the main reason why people engage in modern slavery. The study also found out that 80% of the agribusinesses in the study area were not registered under fair trade and therefore did not operate under fair trade principles and standards. The study therefore concluded on a note to state and non-state organisations to increase awareness raising activities on modern slavery campaigns, improve targeting of livelihood empowerment programmes for the low-income households and for the National Development Planning Commission to introduce an annual district Modern Slavery District League Table to monitor and rank the performance of districts based on agreed anti-modern slavery indicators.