2 PRIMARY PUPILS ARRESTED

Luck run out for two primary school girls from Wa in the Upper Region who outwitted their families and set off for Kumasi in the Ashanti Region to seek “greener pastures”.

However, being novices, they soon aroused the suspicion of Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) officials when in an unsure manner they were seeen crossing the Kulmasa barrier in the Northern Region with their clothing tied in headscarfs.

They could not give any reasons for their being at the border so far away from home, but indicated that they were travelling with an unidentified woman who had promised to find them jobs as porters in Kumasi. The woman, however, managed to escape.

Rukiya Issah, 12, and Afua Mankama, 11, were said to have dressed for school but changed into ordinary clothing on the way and joined the unidentified woman for the trip to Kumasi.

According to Mr Theophilus Amoah, the leader of the team that effected the arrest, the two girls aroused their suspicion when they were crossing the barrier with their clothing tied in headscarfs.

Mr Amoah said the children, upon interrogation, confessed that they were pupils who had abandoned school to follow a woman to Kumasi in search of menial jobs to enable them to start a living.

He said when all attempts to locate the person with whom they were travelling failed, the two children were sent back to Wa where they said they were Class Five pupils of Jujereyiri Primary School.

When The Mirror contacted the regional police command at Wa, Inspector Daniel Dorkpoh of the Police Public Relations Unit, confirmed the story of the arrest of the two pupils at the Kulmasa barrier.

Inspector Dorkpoh said the mother of Rukiya, Zaharatu Issah, and Auntie Fuseina of Nayiri, the mother of Mankama, expressed surprise when they were invited to the police station.

The PRO said the parents told the police that the two pupils left their homes respectively on May 28 dressed in their school uniforms only to change their dresses to embark on “this dangerous trip with somebody they could not even describe”.

Inspector Dorkpoh said the police are investigating the matter and urged drivers to assist the police, by reporting children travelling unaccompanied or accompanied by suspicious characters to help curb the trafficking of girl children to the urban areas to engage in child labour as well as prostitution.