Patience Quaye

Patience Quaye joined the Ghana Police Service in 1977, and now serves as the Director of its Anti-Human Trafficking Unit.

Throughout her career, she has held several different positions within the Police Service, including positions with INTERPOL and with police training programs. She became the Director of the Anti-human trafficking unit in the 2000s, and was responsible for the prosecution and conviction of the first trafficking case ever to be prosecuted in Ghana. She arranged for the perpetrator’s extradition from Nigeria. He was prosecuted in Ghana and received a 6 year sentence. She also arranged for the release of the victims, who the Nigerian police had in custody. She was given a Trafficking in Persons Report Hero Award in 2007, in recognition for her efforts to combat modern-day slavery. Since then, she has continued to fight against human trafficking in Ghana, including helping to establish regional anti-trafficking units.

In the 2014 TIP Report, Ghana was listed as Tier 2 country. It is a source, destination, and transit country for both forced labor and sex trafficking. Child prostitution is common in the region of Lake Volta, as is child labor. Sex trafficking in and out of Ghana is still a problem, and forced labor is prevalent in parts of the country. Although the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit still attempts to vigorously combat this issue, the government of Ghana provides them with little to no funding to do so.