Worried father among many affected by trafficking in Guinea
Foday Musa lost his children to a trafficking scheme, and many others have been affected by human trafficking too, reports BBC Africa Eye and agencies on January 19th.
Musa’s children, along with a few others, were offered work far outside their small village in Guinea in February 2024. His son and daughter, both entering young adulthood, took up the opportunity and sought out said jobs.
When the jobs never came, it became evident that they had been preyed upon by human traffickers who then held them in Sierra Leone, captive.
The case was taken on by Guinea’s global policing agency and Sierra Leone’s unit. Musa joined the search in August 2025, travelling across to Sierra Leone himself. Even though he had given so much money to the group that trafficked his children, he hadn’t heard anything back. His journey to Sierra Leone marked his determination to find them.
Within Sierra Leone’s anti-trafficking unit, Mahmoud Conteh, the head of investigations, gave Musa’s case precedence. When he and Musa, who joined the police group investigating, heard about a potential sighting of human trafficking, they raided the property.
Many people were taken from here, including teenagers. Musa’s children had been sighted previously but were not found on the day of the raid.
Musa isn’t alone in this situation. West Africa has seen a vast number of people scammed into these human trafficking schemes, often under the name QNET. While the original foundation of QNET was legitimate, many criminal groups in West Africa are masking their trafficking schemes under this name.
These ‘QNET’ groups offer worldwide jobs to people in exchange for high starting fees under the guise of setting them up. The groups take their money and transport the people to a local country, promising to take them abroad if they get others to sign up to their scheme. However, those recruited never see the jobs they were promised, even if they manage to sign up others.
When the BBC joined raids in Makeni, they saw many young people who’d faced trafficking all over West Africa; 12 traffickers had been arrested, but a lack of resources meant many traffickers who face prosecution aren’t charged.
In July 2022, Sierra Leone passed an anti-trafficking act. However, there have only been four convictions of trafficking, as of April 2025, according to the US State Department statistics.
Eventually, Musa had to return to Guinea without his children in September 2025. But according to Conteh, his children were released soon after.
According to the BBC, Musa’s daughter has returned to Guinea, but his son’s whereabouts remain unknown; his daughter hasn’t yet returned to her home village or contacted Musa.
Musa simply states that he just wants his children to come home.
BBC Africa Eye and agencies/ Maghrebi.org
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