A Circuit Court at n Asokwa, Kumasi, has sentenced a Nigerian sex trafficker noted for trafficking young Nigerian girls into prostitution in Konongo in the Ashanti region to five years imprisonment with hard labour.

Rose Ikem, aged 40, who was convicted of human trafficking and assault, will also compensate four of her victims, whom she lured from Nigeria, for GHȼ24,000 with each of them receiving GHȼ6,000.00.

Her latest victims were aged between 17 and 24 years.

According to police prosecution, the convict has been trafficking young girls from Nigeria to Konongo, deploying them into prostitution, with some of them being subjected to abuse.

On April 23, 2024, police received a complaint from a resident of Konongo about the treatment being meted out to the victims by the convict.

Police proceeded to the Konongo SSNIT area residence of Ikem but met her absence.

According to ASP Stephen Ofori who led the police prosecution, the police detected that the victims were locked up in a room, and the whereabout of Ikem was unknown.

Police then laid an ambush until she resurfaced and was subsequently arrested.

When she was forced to open the room, police rescued two victims (name withheld) with the two others who ran away being rescued the following day, with the help of the complainant.

The court, presided over by His Honour Fred Obikyere, was told how Ikem tasked her victims, who had worked between three months and two weeks, to make a daily remittance of GHȼ500 to her. This amounted to a total of GHȼ89,000.

According to ASP Ofori, any time the victims failed to meet their target, Ikem assaulted them physically  causing one of the victims to fracture her left hand.

The court sentenced her to 5 years with hard labour for trafficking and 12 months for causing harm. Both sentences will run concurrently.