By Rebecca Ekpe
”If you want to go to the world cup, follow the right Channels to avoid scammers or traffickers”- Abena Annobea Asare
Ahead of the 2026 World Cup, the Human Trafficking Secretariat of the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection is raising awareness on how Cyber fraudsters are already gearing up to exploit the 2026 FIFA World Cup, targeting fans with various scams, including human trafficking. Director at the Human Trafficking Secretariat, Madam Abena Annobea Asare in an exclusive interview with Rebecca Ekpe explained that the vigilance and collaboration to clamp down on the perpetrators began some two years ago.
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”And I think the Ministry together with all related Institutions , that’s the Ghana Police service, Immigration, EOCO including all our partners, CSO’s, and as part of our commemoration of the World Day against Human Trafficking, one aspect of our advocacy is on Trafficking and Sports, we started it two years ago, raising awareness about how individuals need to be careful about Sports and Trafficking”, Madam Anobea Asare noted.
She said the Ministry had noticed, ”an increased level of cyber related crimes and scams that are going on”. Therefore, as part of ”preventive mechanisms and then awareness raising in areas of Human Trafficking, we are actually improving on our advocacy to let the general public know about what Human Trafficking first is, who can be trafficked, what forms of trafficking that exist and also to let the public know that traffickers also use formal channels and opportunities to recruit their suspected victim so that they can either scam them or traffic them to use them for the various purposes”, Madam Anobea Asare explained.
She emphasized the importance of deploying vigilance and collaboration as strategies by the Human Trafficking Secretariat of the Gender Ministry in its anti-human trafficking and sports campaign.
”If somebody tells you I will take you for free, you have to ask questions, if somebody tells you that, I have a friend here who will help you get your Visa, documents, you have to ask questions, we need to be vigilant”, Madam Anobea Asare posited.
She decried how innocent people have fallen victim to scammers and online fraudsters who seem to be making juicy offers to fans wanting to go to the World Cup.
”From our observation, such events, innocent people will be there and the traffickers will be using their names to scam people, so we also pled that,
if you are involved in organizing or preparing or doing any aspect of organizing within the World Cup, you also have to protect your name so that traffickers, fraudulent recruitment agencies, fraud people, scam people do not use your name to scam others so that in the end, they would say you are the one who actually took their money and in reality you are not”, Madam Anobea advised the public.
Furthermore, she said the activities of the fraudsters are outwitting the public.
”We are also educating the general public not to fall victim to traffickers because traffickers are very smart, they will give you good stories, some will tell you that when you get there, you will get job opportunities within the shortest time to work, they will sell good job opportunities, job offers for you, good enjoyment so that you will pay huge sums of money and you will be duped at the end of the day”, Madam Anobea Asare cautioned the public.
Human Trafficking is a crime:
Explaining the ramifications when caught engaging in human trafficking, the Director of the Human Trafficking Secretariat at the Gender Ministry, Madam Abena Anobea Asare stated that an accomplice or intermediaries can be liable.
”And we also want to tell the traffickers or people who intend to scam , that human trafficking is a crime. It’s a crime that when you are caught, you will be arrested, the minimum sentence is 5 years and maximum is 25years, and so you are prohibited to traffic anyone or any person, and if you contravene this section one of the law which is the human trafficking acts ,Acts 694, then you are liable to this offense. and so if you become an intermediary for someone who is actually participating in any form of organized crime or trafficking, you are also liable to the offense, and if you are actually intending to use a trafficked victim, you are also liable to this offense, if you want to consent to sell somebody or exploit somebody, you are also liable to the offense of trafficking. And then also if you intend to either enter into agreement , written or oral, and you know it is fraudulent, it is a scam , it is false and you want to either use force , coercion , deceit to get people to agree to your terms and conditions, that is also a crime”.
