Free The Slaves (FTS), an international non-governmental organization has organized a media engagement for selected journalists and members of its three subsidiaries on anti-human trafficking in Ghana.

The workshop encouraged a network of journalists specialized to throw the spot light on the social issue calling for global attention, to come together to end the menace.

The organizers believe building the capacities of journalists in these regions together with its partners including Mission of Hope International, International Needs Ghana and Partners in Community Development Programme (PACODEP) as implementing partners in the efforts to end the menace is the way to go.

The training of the journalists is regarded a major step in tackling human trafficking and slavery as they were educated on the challenges and dangers associated with the menace, opportunities and challenges in rescuing and rehabilitating enslaved children as well as regional, international laws and protocols on slavery and human trafficking.

Underscoring the importance of the training programme, Free The Slaves Ghana Director, Mr. Joha Braimah said, FTS as part of its strategies and activities to achieve its goals, had identified the media as key players in the dissemination of information and awareness to a wider audience.

The forum, he said, was therefore part of a series of engagements it planned to have with journalists, aimed at empowering the media.

“We have started a media engagement by building the capacity of the media to be able to adequately report on the different dimensions of human trafficking as it exists,” said Mr. Braimah.

“Now often, human trafficking has been reported as an event but in reality, it is a process and so projecting potential victims or survivors as experts in the field and letting the media portray them as such and also, the general awareness raising is the main reason why we have started this engagement with the media.”

The organizers took participants through the concepts, laws and overview of human trafficking globally and Ghana’s place in it, rights based and victim centred approaches to reporting on human trafficking and in particular child trafficking and strategies on how to report on human trafficking in a way that will promote constructive national level discussion with the view to combat the menace as well as participant plans in reporting on child trafficking moving forward.

But there’s a glimpse of hope beaming as the organizers believe the workshop will help whip journalists’ interest in the area of human trafficking.

Founded in 2000, Free the Slaves (FTS) is a pioneer and leader in the global effort to eradicate slavery. Its mission is to liberate those in slavery and to change the conditions that allow slavery to persist by working at the grassroots to empower vulnerable individuals and communities to achieve freedom from slavery and develop resistance to slavery.

The group works with and through local partners to build national capacity to combat slavery and trafficking.