TRAINING OF TRAINERS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING

TRAINING OF TRAINERS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The Human Trafficking Secretariat (HTS) in its implementation of the National Plan of Action (NPA) for the fight against Human Trafficking (HT) has the mandate to work on the 4 Ps (namely Prevention, Protection, Prosecution, and Partnership).

As part of the NPA, under Prevention: Objective 2, Strategy 3, Activity 2; HTS is to conduct systematic training of law enforcement officers and other related stakeholders likely to come into contact with trafficked persons.

Effectively to this cause, the HTS with funding from the European Union has achieved the successful basic trainings of 344 officers and the advanced training of more than 50 officers split between the Northern and Southern Sectors of the country.

In pursuance of the execution of the NPA (under Prevention: Objective 2, Strategy 3, Activity 2) , the Human Trafficking Secretariat – under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) – in collaboration with Expertise France is organizing a Three-day Training of Trainers (ToT) for selected Law Enforcement Officers on HT.

The general purpose of this training is to train trainers, selected from participants that were outstanding and showed a keen interest during the basic and advanced training by their participation and overall performance, to train their peers in Human Trafficking laws.

The Human Trafficking Secretariat noted that the training aims to help fulfill it’s mandates and work together as a team (with the Law enforcement officers) towards combating human trafficking in Ghana.
“The Ministry is poised for action; therefore, we are calling on all stakeholders to push the implementation of the National Plan of Action in our respective institutions to further ensure that no human in Ghana is exploited, trafficked or abused, as well as improve child protection in Ghana”, the Secretariat stressed.

HTS looks forward to discussing issues that fall within the purview and mandates of the law enforcement officers to ensure children, women and the vulnerable are holistically protected.

The Project Manager for Expertise France, Serge Akpalou said that the training of trainers workshop seeks to hone the skills of law enforcement officers who distinguished themselves at both previous basic and advanced trainings held.

According to him, the training will help officers work efficiently in the fight against HT and position them to be experts and advocates at regional levels.

In solidarity messages, Law Enforcement Agencies (Ghana Police Service, Ghana Immigration Service & EOCO), expressed their gratitude to MOGCSP and Expertise France for building their capacity to best fight Human Trafficking.

They admonished officers to make the best out of the training so as to put them a step ahead in dealing with trafficking crimes and help reduce it to the barest minimum.

The Law Enforcement Agencies pledged to maximize the knowledge and skills acquired to make progressive impact and achieve the goal and objectives of the fight against HT.

In the end, the training is expected to:

• Improve greatly participants’ knowledge on human trafficking law and build their confidence to conduct training for their peers.
• Improve participants’ ability to transfer knowledge onto their peers or a wider community to identify or detect and manage cases of human trafficking is greatly improved.
• Ensure participants’ are able to provide practical scenarios/topics for discussions which will encourage experience sharing to improve learning during training sessions.
• Ensure participants’ are able to handle more complex questions of trafficking and provide practical answers.

The training, which is taking place in Ho, will cover the period of Wednesday 19th to Friday 21st April 2023.

Source: MoGCSP