TWO HELD OVER CHILD TRAFFICKING (PAGE 14, MARCH 25, 2010)

TWO persons suspected to be involved in human trafficking have been arrested by the Tema Police.
The two were arrested at about 11:30 a.m. yesterday at the Kpone Police checkpoint on the Tema-Aflao road in the company of three persons, two of them children, on thier way to Lagos, Nigeria.
The suspects are, Ayeshetu Musah, a 38-year-old trader, and Masawudu Mohammed, 31, who is the driver of a BMW saloon vehicle, with registration number CG-984-LCD, on which they were travelling.
According to the regional co-ordinator of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU), Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Rebecca Nyamah, the suspects were intercepted by police personnel on duty at the checkpoint on suspicion that the three were being trafficked out of the country.
ASP Nyamah told the Daily Graphic that the three — Comfort Yeboah, 20, Comfort Arthur, 10, both residents of Tsereso-Odom, a suburb of Abandzie in the Central Region, and Linda Bosomtwi, 13, a pupil of Kormantse DA Primary also in the Central Region — could not give any tangible reasons when quizzed by the officers on duty.
“The shabby nature in which the children were dressed aroused the suspicion of the officers, leading to their arrest when they could not give any tangible reasons,” she said.
The driver of the vehicle, however, told the police in his caution statement that Comfort Yeboah and Comfort Arthur were put into his car when he loaded from the co-operative station at Tudu, a suburb of Accra, by a woman known only as ‘Hajia’ for onward transportation to her sister, who is resident in Lagos.
Ayeshetu, however, denied the offence in her caution statement insisting that Linda was her daughter.
The girl, on the other hand, told this reporter that she was handed over to the woman by her father to be sent to Lagos to enable her to continue her education owing to financial difficulties.
ASP Nyamah said the two would be put before court immediately investigation revealed they tried to smugge the children out of the country.
She appealed to the general public and parents whose children were missing to report to the unit in order to be reunited with them.