Nigerian trader grabbed over trafficking

Joyce Samuel Chidema, aka Choice, a Nigerian trader, has appeared before an Accra Circuit Court for trafficking three persons to Ghana to engage in prostitution.

Chidema is being held on the charges of two counts of human trafficking, two counts of procuration, trading in prostitution, failure to appear before an Immigration Officer, and entry into Ghana through illegal place of entry and boarder.

The accused person is said to have asked her victims to pay GHC700,000 and GHC1-million cedis before they could secure their freedom.

She has denied the charges before the court presided over by Mr Samuel Bright Acquah, a relieving judge.

The court admitted Joyce to bail in the sum of GHC100,000 with three sureties, one to be justified.

The prosecution, led by Mr Abu Issah, said on October 17, 2022, the Human Trafficking Unit of the Economic and Organised Crime Office, received intelligence that three Nigerian women had been trafficked to Ghana by another Nigerian woman.

The prosecution said investigations established that the accused person was a Nigerian who had resided in Ghana since January 2021, and had allegedly been working as a prostitute and a trader in cloth.

It said Chidema had harboured three persons name withheld and had engaged them in prostitution.

The prosecution said further investigations established that Chidema had allegedly kept the victims in a house in Ghana and that she had been exploiting their vulnerability of being unemployed.

It said Chidema had also taken the three victims to a Shrine where they were made to “swear loyalty to the accused person and compelled them to engage in prostitution”.

According to the prosecution, the victims were also made to make sales between GHC80 and GHC100 each to Chidema after engaging in the prostitution business.

The prosecution said further investigations revealed that Chidema had told her victims that they could only secure their freedoms from her “if they work to pay her between GHC700,000 and GHC1-million”.