The Parent and Child Foundation (PACF), a child protection non-governmental organisation (NGO), has set up a three-member community surveillance team charged to 'police' the communities of Oshiyie, Bortianor, Ada and Tsokome.

The team is to ensure that all trafficked children in the communities are 'fished out', the intermediaries arrested and all school age children are in school to sustain the anti-child trafficking activities.

It was as a result of these efforts that the cases involving the return of Peter Asiedu, the son of Addoley Kpakpo and stepfather of Enoch Odartey Lamptey, and the trafficking of Lamiley's sons by her mother, Esi Karley, through Senya Beraku to Yeji were reported to the Bortianor community surveillance team.

The leaders of the Bortianor community surveillance team decided to test the Human Trafficking Act (Act 694), and the PACF agreed to facilitate the process to serve as a deterrent to other communities.

A statement from the foundation in reaction to the story on the arrest which appeared in the Daily Graphic of November 18, 2007 said team leaders led the complainants to make a formal report to the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) for assistance to bring the culprits to book.

It said Enoch Odartey Lamptey, the stepfather of Peter Asiedu, 9, was asked to rescue and produce the child from Yeji, which he did. He was escorted by Peter Amui, a member of the team at Bortianor.

In the case of Lamiley's sons, the statement said the DOVVSU called for assistance from the Senya Beraku Police to escort Esi Karley, who lived at Senya Beraku, for investigation.

Esi Karley, the mother of Lamiley, offered to assist Lamiley, mother of four, with the upbringing of two of the children - Alfred Aedi Akpa, 5, and Ebenezer Lamptey, 9.

Lamiley visited her two sons at Senya Beraku from time to time until the death "of her husband. The state~ ment explained that sometime in October she heard that her two sons, together with her younger brother, had been trafficked to a fishing community in Yeji. She confronted the mother, who became adamant in telling the truth until she heard of the death of Alfred Aedi Akpa.

Lamiley, who did not take kindly to the news of the death of her son, reported the case to Isaac Mensah the leader of the Bortianor community surveillance team, who led her to DOVVSU to ensure that Lamiley's nine-year-old son and her brother were brought from Yeji immediately. The two hoys are doing well and have been enrolled in a school at Bortianor, it added.


Source: Daily Graphic