ACCRA, Ghana — 30 July 2026 — On the 2026 World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, participants from government, the United Nations and regional bodies, civil society and survivor networks, the financial and technology sectors, academia, the media and youth groups gathered online today for “Trapped Behind the Scam,” a national forum on trafficking for forced criminality convened by GYAN Ghana, the Democratic Network for Action (DNA) and Transnational Mobility Pathways (TMP). The forum closed with the adoption of a Communiqué setting out concrete commitments for government, the private sector, regional partners, civil society and young people, and with the announcement of a new Ghana Civil Society Coalition Against Transnational Crime, to be launched in Accra on International Youth Day, 12 August 2026.
The forum addressed one of the fastest-growing and least understood forms of the crime: people who are trafficked and then forced, under threat, to commit cyber-enabled fraud from locked compounds. The recruits are typically lured by a convincing online job advert; on arrival their passports are seized, a “debt” is imposed, and they are made to defraud strangers online to a daily quota. Once cast by the world as a South-East Asian problem, the model has spread, and West Africa is now squarely on the map.
Ghana is not a bystander. Over the past eighteen months, more than one hundred young Ghanaians were rescued in Ho after recruitment on social media (January 2026); twenty-eight were repatriated from Côte d’Ivoire (May 2026); forty-four were freed from camps in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria (March 2026); and nine persons were rescued and ten suspects arrested at Afienya on 21 July 2026 — nine days before this World Day. Speakers described a country that is now, at once, a source, a transit point and a destination for the crime.
A recurring theme was the victim–offender overlap: trafficked people compelled to commit fraud are too often arrested, prosecuted or deported as criminals rather than identified as victims. The forum affirmed the principle of non-punishment of victims for offences committed as a direct consequence of being trafficked, and heard that treating victims as suspects both denies them justice and lets the traffickers escape.
Moderated by Ms. Hellena Buabeng (Founder & General Manager, Design Solar Training & Installations Ltd.), the programme paired anonymous survivor testimony with expert analysis: Joshua Mawutor of Partners Recruitment Consult traced the path from fake job advert to locked compound; David Mosetse, a former INTERPOL Director and Deputy Commissioner of the Botswana Police Service, set out the transnational, digital anatomy of the crime and how nations can disrupt it; and clinical psychologist Mrs. Ethel Obeng-Treve (Fafanto Psych & Wellness Consult) spoke to the trauma, stigma and care survivors need. A youth intervention from the All Africa Students Union carried the prevention message to those most at risk.
“For fifteen years, since young Ghanaians first began to be drawn into online fraud, GYAN Ghana has warned that this was never simply a story of criminal young people — it was a story of young people preyed upon,” said Lamberta Bina Abusah, co-convener of the forum for GYAN Ghana. “Today the world calls it ‘Trapped Behind the Scam,’ and the young person is no longer only running the scam — increasingly they are trafficked and forced to run it. This forum is a stand taken by young people, and our Communiqué is a set of commitments we intend to carry to those with the power to act.”
In one of its most significant outcomes, the forum announced the founding of the Ghana Civil Society Coalition Against Transnational Crime — a standing, survivor-informed platform to coordinate civil-society action against trafficking for forced criminality and related transnational crime. The Coalition is intended to lead efforts toward a West African and, ultimately, an African regional coalition, and will be formally launched in Accra on International Youth Day, 12 August 2026.
The forum also issued a global appeal, calling on the citizens and corporations of the whole world to support the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Blue Heart Campaign against human trafficking — to wear the Blue Heart, amplify its message, and fund and partner its work — so that ending trafficking becomes a shared, global responsibility.
Among the Communiqué’s key calls and outcomes:
• Found a Ghana Civil Society Coalition Against Transnational Crime — to be launched in Accra on International Youth Day (12 August 2026) and to lead toward West African and African regional coalitions;
• Call on the world’s citizens and corporations to support the UNODC Blue Heart Campaign against human trafficking;
• Screen every person rescued from or returned from a scam operation as a potential trafficking victim before any charge or deportation, and apply the non-punishment principle with clear guidance, legal aid and a route to expungement;
• Task the Cyber Security Authority to make reporting easy, press platforms to remove recruitment content, and integrate cyber and anti-trafficking responses;
• Direct the Financial Intelligence Centre, banks and mobile-money providers to treat scam-linked flows as a trafficking indicator and to trace and freeze proceeds, while protecting coerced account-holders;
• Deepen cross-border cooperation through INTERPOL and ECOWAS, and strengthen consular protection for Ghanaians trapped abroad;
• Sustain youth-led, peer-to-peer prevention around a simple rule — no legitimate employer takes your passport, charges you to work, or rushes you to travel.
The full Communiqué will be transmitted to the institutions named in it. A forum report and an edited recording of the event will be published within three weeks.

About the conveners
GYAN Ghana is a youth organisation that has, for two decades, worked to put young people’s voice at the centre of national decision-making — through Global Youth Service Day, the World Programme of Action for Youth and Ghana’s National Youth Policy; the localisation of the Millennium Development Goals and the Ghana Youth Coalition for the MDGs; technical inputs to the process that became the Sustainable Development Goals; and, since around 2009, sustained advocacy against the drawing of young Ghanaians into online fraud. Its work has been delivered with partners including the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, the British Council, UNICEF and United Nations Volunteers. The forum was co-convened with the Democratic Network for Action (DNA) and Transnational Mobility Pathways (TMP).
Media contact
GYAN Ghana, Accra, Ghana · [email protected]
#EndHumanTrafficking · #TrappedBehindTheScam · #BlueHeart · #EndHTGhana · www.endht.org
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