Human Trafficking: The Case of Ghanaians women in the SWANA region
The governments of Ghana and other countries in the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region have been concerned about the trafficking of Ghanaian women for sexual exploitation for many years. This issue emerged due to reports of large numbers of Ghanaian women who had been trafficked to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other SWANA nations. In light of this situation, the Ghanaian government planned in 2018 to establish a diplomatic presence in Kuwait as a means to stop the abuse of Ghanaians. This article will critically examine anti-trafficking initiatives in the SWANA area and the challenges of law enforcements in the fight against human trafficking.
The UN International Organization for Migration estimates that the number of potential sex trafficking victims traveling from Africa to the Gulf States has increased by almost 600%. Human trafficking is a danger that does not only affect Ghana.Ghanian Women are often trafficked into slavery and commercial sexual exploitation. For the majority of these women, cross-border trafficking or illegal migrant smuggling is linked to rogue recruitment firms that send young women to Gulf States like Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia for jobs that do not exist. Over the past few years, dubious employment organisations have emerged in Ghana to prey on helpless Ghanaians who are yearning to leave the country for lands with better economic prospects-opportunities. As a result, some trafficking victims have lacked protection in the Middle East. Because they are perceived as illegal immigrants, victims of human trafficking are frequently penalized.
Globally, anti-trafficking legislation does not mention the liability of consumers of services rendered by trafficked persons Few laws allow for the prosecution of a client who purchases sexual services from a victim of human trafficking. The Swedish approach, where the buyer is held accountable by the country's anti-trafficking legislation, is an exception to this rule. However, in SWANA, only the Syrian law addresses the responsibility of consumers, users, or clients. In this regard, the law clearly stipulates that anyone who has knowledge of the act of trafficking and receives a material or moral profit from the services rendered by the victim is subject to a fine and a prison sentence ranging from six months to two years. This is a commendable concept, as one of the most efficient ways to stop trafficking is to discourage demand by enacting appropriate legislative measures to penalise the users. Despite its preventive nature, this law is insufficient. According to international anti-human trafficking standards the protection of the victim should be the top priority. However, the Arab league's model law is often more focused on prosecution than on protection.
The Arab League Model Law, with the exception of Article 12 (which states that the competent authorities shall adopt measures to ensure protection of victims, those who report the crimes stipulated in the law, and those affected by these crimes, including witnesses, experts, and their family members), is limited to criminalization and does not cover protection today. In the UAE, the protection of victims is not addressed in any way in the legislation. Nevertheless, Article 14 of the Gulf States Cooperation Council's (GCC) Model Law to Combat Human Trafficking (MLCHTC) stipulates various preventive measures to be followed throughout an investigation or trial.
To conclude, I would like to emphasize how Arab culture has come to recognize human trafficking and its impact on law enforcement. The following three assumptions encapsulate three sorts of theoretical barriers that impede human rights from becoming a more pervasive and assertive force: Human rights are a concept that originated in the West; cultural objections are unique to non-Western people; and the only challenge to universality is cultural relativism. The Arab world has long faced criticisms of human rights infringements. To move toward a more sustainable universality of human rights, it is necessary to work at the nexus of these challenges through academic, political and cultural debates that place Arab culture, identity, and religion within the human rights paradigm, not in opposition to it.
Many Arab Spring nations have endorsed the principle of universality of human rights by signing and ratifying international human rights agreements, which state that all people are entitled to the same protections under the law regardless of their race, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, age, sexual orientation, ability, or any other distinguishing characteristic. However, for many years to come ,the universal standards established by these international human rights protocols were watered down or simply rejected because they were incompatible with Arab cultural, religious, and practical practices, which is known as cultural relativism in human rights theory and in everyday language. In order to allow for some local variations in the scope of rights, cultural relativism can take one of two forms: a strong form that views culture as a primary source of a right's legitimacy, and a weaker form that assumes the universality of rights. Historically, cultural relativism has been use both by religious leaders to maintain control over legislation and by Arab states to evade or subvert their obligations to uphold human rights under these instruments. The idea of human rights has been seen to be a western/imperialist creation.
This discussion is reminiscent of what the renowned author Edward Said called the creation of "the Orient" in European and American literature, which established boundaries between the West and the rest of the world based on imagined barriers of geography and culture. This had an impact on how human trafficking laws are applied in the SWANA region.
Using the instance of Ghana as an illustration, we can see how SWANA currently seriously
addresses women trafficking from the victims perspective. However, from the government's perspective, it does not receive attention. There are issues that need to be addressed or dealt with in order to stop the trafficking of women from southern Africa to the SWANA region. Does a nation have specific anti-trafficking laws that not only make the act of trafficking illegal, but also provide those who are trafficked with the necessary protection, support, and care?
References:
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About the author :
Insaf Elouard is a Moroccan social activist and writer , currently first year at the African leadership Academy; an academy that seeks to transform Africa by developing a powerful network of young leaders who will work together to address Africa's greatest challenges. Insaf is particularly interested in ethical leadership and political anthropology. She is currently conducting a research paper on the diverse systems of social control in Morocco and the implementation of inequalities within the African continent Prior to this, she worked in various roles at NGOs that advocated for social equality
