A Circuit Court at Asokwa, Kumasi, Ghana, has sentenced a Nigerian sex trafficker to five years of imprisonment with hard labor for trafficking young girls from Nigeria to Konongo in the Ashanti region for prostitution.
Rose Ikem, aged 40, was convicted this week of human trafficking and assault. In addition to her prison sentence, she will also compensate four of her victims, whom she lured from Nigeria, with a total of GH₵24,000, with each of them receiving GH₵6,000.
Her latest victims were aged between 17 and 24 years. According to the police prosecution, the convict has been trafficking young girls from Nigeria to Konongo and 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 found her absent.
ASP Stephen Ofori, who led the police prosecution, stated that the police detected the victims were locked up in a room, and Ikem’s whereabouts were 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 (names withheld), with the other two who had run 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 GH₵500 to her. This amounted to a total of GH₵89,000. 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 five years with hard labor for trafficking and 12 months for causing harm. Both sentences will run concurrently.
