
OUR PILOT
THE HOPE EDUCAtion project pilot
Committed policy in Ghana
“…the government will commit to implementing a coordinated campaign strategy to deepen the awareness and understanding of trafficking, in schools, communities and in families perceived to be at risk”
National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Human Trafficking in Ghana 2017-2021
Ghana is fully committed to combating human trafficking in all its forms and ensuring the rights of individuals are upheld.
National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Human Trafficking in Ghana 2022-2026
Human Trafficking in Ghana
The Government launched “The National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Human Trafficking in Ghana 2022-2026” in March 2022. The US Department of State Trafficking in Persons 2023 (TIP23) report found that human trafficking exists nationwide and that of the 574 reported cases, 359 or 62% were identified as children. NGOs in Ghana identified a significant number of cases.
Ghanaian girls and young women from the rural northern regions are increasingly moving to urban centres to seek work as porters, known locally as kayaye. The push factors are diverse but they include climate change, lack of educational opportunities for girls, familial breakdown and lack of employment opportunities. One study reported that 20% of kayaye had been forced to have sex against their will whilst working in the South and another that 50% of children born to kayaye mothers at Korle Bu Hospital in Accra were abandoned by their mothers.
Women and young girls are trafficked within Ghana, to the Middle East, other West African countries and Europe for commercial sex work. There is scant research data on the extent of the increasing problem of child sex trafficking in Ghana. UNICEF reports that Ghana is a major destination for sex tourism and the often small-scale research that has been undertaken points to child sex trafficking being prevalent throughout the country.
Labour trafficking in Ghana is a significant issue. Ghanaian children are trafficked internally and throughout West Africa for exploitative labour, including domestic service. Children are trafficked internally to work in the fishing industry around Lake Volta and as labour in the cocoa industry. The recent CNN exposé on children in fishing and action by the cocoa industry has shone an international light on the issues of child labour and trafficking. However, the poorer, less industrialised, less educated and climate-ravaged north has received little attention and even less academic assessment.
The North East of Ghana

The North East of Ghana is increasingly vulnerable to human trafficking due to longstanding ethnic conflicts around Bawku, porous borders with Burkina Faso and Togo, and a prevalent culture of banditry and illicit trafficking. Recent armed lawlessness, ethnically motivated attacks against bus passengers in Walewale and on routes north to Bawku and population displacements from Togo are laying fertile ground for traffickers. These factors, compounded by the presence and activities of jihadist groups in the Sahel Region exploiting the region’s instability, underscore the critical need for a focused human trafficking intervention program in this area. You can read a fuller explanation of why we chose to loacte our pilot project in Northern Ghana on our page Why Northern Ghana.
The Hope Education Project will launch its pilot program in one of the areas of greatest need: Tamale, in the Northern Region of Ghana. We have secured permission from the Ghana Education Service to run the pilot between February and March 2025 in three Junior High Schools within the Tamale Metropolitan and Sagnerigu Districts. Additionally, we will be conducting a community program for the parents of the schoolchildren. As children increasingly gain knowledge through the internet and programs like HEP’s, it is vital to ensure that parents are engaged and can support their children’s learning.
We will also run a pilot program targeting out-of-school girls, a particularly vulnerable community. This program is designed for girls who are not currently in education, either because they completed Junior High School but did not transition to Senior High School, or because they dropped out altogether. Despite free education in Ghana, many students cannot participate fully due to the cost of uniforms and books. Historically, educating girls in northern Ghana has been a low priority for families, leaving many to seek ways to fund their own education, including working as kayaye in Ghana’s southern cities. Others enter unpaid apprenticeships lasting up to three years, leaving them at risk of exploitation by traffickers.
For the pilot, we are collaborating with our implementation partner, Norsaac, which will develop and oversee the monitoring and evaluation framework. We are also working with our researcher, Maryam Rafieifar from the University of Texas at Austin. Maryam will analyze the data gathered during the pilot to refine the program and provide evidence-based insights to strengthen future funding applications, enabling us to scale the program across Ghana.
The pilot project will be run by HEP Founder Angus Thomas and led by HEP Projects Manager Mariama Adam. Mariama brings extensive experience in community development projects in Tamale, most recently serving as Local Director for Theatre for Social Change.