The Strengthening Border Security in Ghana (SBS Ghana) Project in collaboration with Expertise France and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) organised a six-day Joint Training for Border Management and Law Enforcement Agencies in Tamale from Nov 28 – Dec 3.
The training was organised in partnership with the Human Trafficking Secretariat (HTS) of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) within the framework of two European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa projects – respectively the “Strengthening Border Security in Ghana” being implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development(ICMPD) and “Support to the fight against human trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea countries" being implemented by Expertise France.
The purpose of the training was to train a pool of over fifty officers drawn from the Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Police Service, Customs Division of GRA, Economic and Organised Crime Office, and the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) on Integrated Border Management (Inter-Agency coordination, cooperation mechanisms, border surveillance, joint patrolling), counter-terrorism management, Joint Operations; Identification and Management of Human Trafficking cases.
Officers were also taken through the Effective Management of Refugee/Asylum related cases - the identification and protection of refugees in line with obligations under the Ghana Refugee Law, 1992 by the UNHCR.
In a goodwill message read on behalf of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), the Deputy Director of the Human Trafficking Secretariat (HTS), Madam Sena Owusu-Gibson, charged law enforcement officers “to work together, share information and strengthen the collaboration among different partners to effectively tackle issues of human trafficking, Border Management and Refugees Laws.”
The key outcome of this joint training is that participants will have better knowledge and management of tools related to IBM and security, human trafficking, working with communities, and identifying and protecting refugees in line with obligations under the Ghana Refugee Law, 1992. And also, the ability to identify, detect and manage simple and complex human trafficking cases is greatly improved.
The Joint Training for Border Management and Law Enforcement Agencies was one of the key recommendations from the high-level regional conference on Border Management held in Accra from 8 – 10 November 2021, within the framework of the Strengthening Border Security in Ghana (SBS Ghana) project to discuss security and cross-border cooperation issues.