Media practitioners urged to play watchdog roles in fight against human trafficking and slavery

Journalists and media practitioners in the country have been urged to play a key role in the fight against human trafficking and modern slavery.

Mr. Joha Braimah, West African Regional Director of Free The Slaves, (FTS) a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to ending human trafficking and modern slavery worldwide through advocating for stronger anti-trafficking laws and increased funding of anti-slavery programmes made the call during a two-day media engagement on human trafficking and slavery in Kumasi for selected journalists and personnel of its subsidiaries on anti-human trafficking.

While asserting that human trafficking and modern slavery were real and that no country was spared from the phenomenon. Mr. Braimah said averting the canker depended on the key role played by media practitioners.

“The journalists play a key watchdog role for us and it’s important that they are also paying attention to some of these social issues that are happening within our communities so that the discussion around human trafficking is alive and we are taking the appropriate steps to tackle it,” said Mr. Braimah.

The West African Regional Director asserts that though most reportages on the topics are “good,” others are not persuasive enough, adding that stories on anti-human trafficking must be sustained to achieve the necessary impact.

“We have certainly seen a lot of good reportage from journalists across the board, both in print media, social media but we have also seen other reports that do not really get to the core of the issue of human trafficking but more looking at specific events which are not helpful because human trafficking is a process and it’s an issue-based story more so than just an event story so these are the areas that we are trying to draw journalists’ attention to so that they are covering the whole cycle of human trafficking and not covering it as an event,” he noted.

The workshop, among others, offered the organizers the opportunity to engage journalists in the print, radio, TV, and online media platforms in discussions that will further strengthen their skills and knowledge around human trafficking to enable them to report objectively and constructively.

This was intended to ensure that journalists speak to the issues devoid of sensational reporting but rather engender a national and community dialogue around the issue so that they are not detracting their stories or reportage are not detracting from the core issue of human trafficking.

The NGO has over the past two years engaged media personnel on human trafficking (modern slavery), the causative factors of human trafficking and slavery, the vulnerabilities of individuals and communities to the phenomenon, the ability of journalists to identify suspected cases of human trafficking, the international and national laws governing human trafficking and how they are interpreted and rights of survivors under the laws of Ghana.

The workshop encouraged a network of journalists specialized to throw the spotlight on the social issues calling for global attention to come together and to end the menace.

On his part, the Senior Country Manager of the Free the Slaves (FTS) noted that journalists must put their attention on averting the canker to save children who stand out as the worst victims.

The effects of these on the victims, including sexual abuses, according to Mr Bismarck Quartey, were unfavorable to them as both survivors and victims suffered emotionally and psychologically.

Some of the implementing partners who partook in the workshop included Mission of Hope International, International Needs Ghana and Partners in Community Development Programme (PACODEP).