A two-day meet on combatting human trafficking in west Africa closed here Wednesday with states of the regional ECOWAS grouping pledging to fight the menace through stiffer laws and policing.
The meeting, organised jointly by the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP), ended with a sweeping draft resolution.
The resolution will come up for adoption at an ECOWAS heads of state meeting in December. The west African region has earned notoriety for rampant human trafficking, especially in children and women.
The draft plan urged member states to take "urgent action against trafficking in persons in 2002-2003, for countries to ratify and fully implement crucial international instruments of ECOWAS" and called on the United Nations to "strengthen laws against human trafficking and protect victims of trafficking, especially women and children."
The resolution, if adopted, will "commit countries to adopt laws criminalizing trafficking in human beings and to build the necessary administrative structures.
"ECOWAS countries will also develop public awareness campaigns aimed at potential victims of trafficking, using both traditional channels of information as well as the mass media," it said.
The draft plan also calls for "special police units to combat trafficking of persons," as well as better "training for police, customs and immigration officials, prosecutors and judges."
Delegates at the meeting included officials from the law and interior ministries of the concerned countries as well as immigration and border officials.
ECOWAS, founded in 1975 to promote regional economic integration, includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.
Ghana's Justice Minister and Attorney-General Nana Akuffo Addo said in opening remarks that west Africa had to work together to end "modern-day slavery".
"How many of us can say that we have gone further to enact the necessary domestic legislation which would make these practices criminal offences in our national jurisdictions?" he said.
Addo urged ECOWAS members to ratify and fully implement an African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and ratify a UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and human trafficking.
He also called for the establishment of "multi-sectoral national task forces" to stem the practice.
The minister said many of the girls being trafficked ended up as prostitutes.
UNODCCP official Burkhard Damman said: "Increasingly, at national and international levels, criminal organisations have become more sophisticated, due to improved transport, communication and information technology.
"It is thought that between 700,000 and two million women and children worldwide are bought and sold every year."
He said the UN children's agency UNICEF estimated that about "200,000 children are trafficked every year in the central and west African sub-region."
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