Abstract

Human trafficking in this era has been conceptualized as a global event that is likened to slavery because of the inhumane treatment that the victims go through. The scope and the criminal aspect of it demands police initiative to curb the menace. The current researcher used semi-structured qualitative interview, direct observation, and review of documents to gather data from Ghana Police Service and some anti-human trafficking institutions in Ghana to identify the nature, scope and responses to reduce or eradicate this menace that has detrimental effect on the people of Ghana, as a case study. Contemporarily, in terms of origin, destination and transit of people to engage in this criminal act, the menace put Ghana into Tier Two Watch-List classification in 2015 on the international level. Human trafficking in Ghana was characterized as violence, debt bondage, exploitation, deprivation of the freedom of the victims, and confiscation of travelling and other documents. The study revealed that the government of Ghana had put in only a minimal effort to curb the menace, and that the trafficking of people had created a security concern that the police must be apt to control. There is a recommendation that the Government of Ghana puts in maximal effort to educate the people and equip the Police service in Ghana to enable the service take tough action to ensure the maximum implementation of the regulations against human trafficking.

Key words: Human trafficking, Ghana, policing, inhumane treatment, criminalization, border crime.