Ue heauties to focus HE fight against child trafficking has found a voice in the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, a heart from the Queen Mothers’ Support Association (QMSA). Soon, the winner of the Tertiary 2009 pageant will become the face of those fighting to eradicate child abuse in Ghana. Inits second edition, the Tertiary 2009 com- petition seeks to produce beauty queens from Ghana's tertiary institutions who will use their beauty, intelligence and maturity to propagate this year’s cause against child trafficking. Along with the announcement in Accra on Monday, the QMSA called.a press confer- ence to discuss another local issue affecting children and the youth: the practice of fraudu- lent scamming, also known as ‘Sakawa’, “It is our responsibility to see that every child is safe and has a bright future,” said Queen Mother Nana Serwah Bonsu, president of QMSA, The Tertiary pageant started a number of years ago with a group of young people with a unique ideal. They wanted to give tertiary in- stitutions a research topic and put them to work on finding solutions to a social problem. ‘The winner of the beauty competition then works toward implementing those solutions. On behalf of the sponsor, Brien Consult, Christiala Nandara, Executive Director, said “the young women representing their tertiary institutions are the “vehicles in the fight against child labour,” Daniel C:Dugan, the former Deputy Min- ister of Women’s and Children’s Affairs, said the ministry needs to work with research in- stitutions to eradicate human trafficking. “This problem cannot be eradicated by any. single individual. There needs to be a lot of help,” he said, Each year, between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across international bor- ders, of which, 70 per cent are women and 50 percent are children, according to Mr. Dugan. Oe TC CTT Mr Alex TertepEnyo, Mintser of Edutation ‘Mr. Dugan tirged community members to be Vigilant about who was travelling in and out of their communities and alert officials if someone was suspiciously travel- ling with a child. ‘The second half of the press conference was devoted to ways residents can stamp out local prac- tives of Sakawa by identifying per- petratorsand helping victims come forth ‘Nii Okaidja TI, the Gbese Mantse, said the answer to ending Sakaw involves community action. “Bach one of us has the power t stop this menace," he said. “It’s mak ing sure that we are not-scared 0 them, then we can stop it” The Gbese Mantse described. personal situation that illustrated common scam. He said he receive a letter that suspiciously promise him large sums of money, so he calle the number and was surprised to hea a strong Nigerian accent from the ma who claimed to be in Spain,