By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
March 26, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
Whether this is true or not, I cannot tell, though I have absolutely no reason to believe that it is not. I am hereby, of course, referring to the Adomonline.com news report that at least 20 Ghanaians have been detained by Kuwaiti authorities for apparently criminal activities, including prostitution (See "Over 20 Ghanaians Detained In Kuwait" Adomonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 3/26/15). We also learn that the preceding news report reached the editorial room of Adomonline.com via the cellphone of one of the alleged detainees, a woman, who had successfully managed to hide her communication device in her private parts.
The report goes on to further allege that these women were unsuspectingly lured to Kuwait by some unscrupulous contractors who had promised them plum jobs and handsome salaries once they arrived in that Gulf-State country. I am calling on President John Dramani Mahama to investigate this news report because the Ghanaian leader, who is no stranger to the Gulf-State countries and their sheikhs and sultans, has a bounden obligation as Ghana's Number-One Citizen to protect the lives and welfare of Ghanaian citizens wherever they may find themselves around the globe.
What actually piqued my interest and attention was the fact that the report also alleged that victims caught in the Kuwaiti legal drag-net were not only being used as sex slaves, unpaid, in that Arab nation, but also that those among the alleged victims who got pregnant were being earmarked for summary execution. If the foregoing report has credibility, then three human-rights issues are at play here, and the sooner the Mahama government takes up the matter, the better would it likely prevent these alleged acts of criminality against Ghanaian and global humanity.
The three human-rights issues at stake here are, one, sexual violation of the alleged victims; two, the victims' sexual exploitation; and three, the victims' apparently unlawful detention and the threat of summary execution. The latter factor actually makes up the fourth human-rights violation. I am also well aware of the fact that Accra maintains diplomatic relations with Kuwait City, with the two countries maintaining Resident Ambassadors in each other's administrative capital; and so opening an investigation into this evidently serious report of human-rights violations ought not be a difficult endeavor. The alleged citizen reporter who gave the above information to the Adomonline.com media operatives, also allegedly claims that the alleged victims had been unsuspectingly sold for GHC 7,000 (Seven-Thousand Cedis) apiece as sex slaves.
This aspect of the report also needs to be promptly investigated and the culprits involved punished to the fullest extent allowed by the law. Now, the question of which country's laws ought to be applied, may have to be settled between the leaders of the two countries and/or their legally designated representatives. There may, of course, be more to this report than has so far been revealed. For instance, there is the critical question of how long this practice has existed between unsuspecting Ghanaian citizens and the allegedly cutthroat Kuwaiti contractual poseurs and scam-artists. Then also, which authority figures and/or reckless political operatives are behind such criminal and patently outrageous racket?
It goes without saying that I have my own reservations about the aforesaid report, but I prefer to hold my breath until the relevant authorities have investigated the same and drawn their most logical conclusions based of the real facts of the case.
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