Ivorian police have arrested a Ghanaian couple accused of child slavery and freed seven Ghanaian girls, who worked for them in slave-like conditions in Ivory Coast. A police source in Abidjan named the couple as Dame Augustina Amoah and Isaac Abedu. They were both arrested this week in Bassam, 40 km east of Abidjan and taken to court.

Abedu and Amoah had no authorization from parents of the girls to take them to C?te d'Ivoire. Each girl was working for a daily wage of CFA 200, as a domestic servant in different homes, but the enslaving couple earned 1,000 Francs in return. Discouraged by the job, two of the girls decided to return to Ghana.

On their way home, they were intercepted in Bassam by a local head of the Ghanaian community living in the coastal town. He took the two girls to a police station where they narrated their ordeal, prompting a quick investigation by the police and the tracing of the remaining five girls. Abedu and Amoah confessed their crime during interrogation and are awaiting sentence at a court in Bassam. The seven girls, aged between 15 and 18, have been kept in a "secure place", waiting to be handed over to Ghanaian authorities in Abidjan.

Ghanaian slave-girls found in C?te d’Ivoire

Seven Ghanaian girls aged between 15 and 18 years, who were made to work in slave-like conditions, have been freed by the Ivorian police.A police source in Abidjan said that persons who had enslaved the girls have been arrested.

Dame Augustina Amoah and Isaac Abedu, both from Ghana, were arrested this week in Bassam, 40 km east of Abidjan and taken to court. The two pleaded guilty, the police said. According to the same source, Abedu and Amoah are husband and wife and had no authorization from parents of the girls to take them to C?te d’Ivoire.

Each girl was working for a daily wage of CFA 200 (1 dollar = CFA 750) as a domestic servant in different homes, but the enslaving couple earned 1,000 francs in return. Discouraged by their jobs, two of the girls decided to go back to Ghana. On their way home, they were intercepted in Bassam by a local head of the Ghanaian community living in the coastal town.

He took the two girls to a police station where they narrated their ordeal, prompting a quick investigation by the police and the tracing of the remaining five girls. Upon their arrest, Abedu and Amoah confessed to their crime. They are awaiting sentence at a court in Bassam.

The seven girls have been kept in a “secure place”, waiting to be handed over to Ghanaian authorities in Abidjan. Meanwhile, C?te d’Ivoire is preparing to host a three-day international meeting in the city of Yamoussoukro on the growing problem of child trafficking in West and Central Africa.