Long before the Ghanaian government woke up to both the potential and challenges of labour migration to the Gulf states, a handful of private recruitment agents – mainly situated in the capital city of Accra and the second-largest city of Kumasi – had already started raking it in. They had intimate knowledge of the labour market needs of the GCC states, the unemployment and economic crisis of their own country, and a rather free hand in bridging the needs of the two markets as the governments were still grappling with how best to manage the situation.

But sometime around 2015 and 2016, the number of complaints received from Ghanaian women deployed as domestic workers — both by registered and illegal agents – was on the rise. Media reporting and word-of-mouth stories painted the most gruesome of pictures that could not be denied – sexual and physical abuse, debilitating injuries, deaths, wage theft, and dehumanising living conditions.

These reports set in motion a series of events. The idea for a ban on domestic worker deployment directly to households was originally put forward by registered recruitment agents but backfired drastically....

Five years later, and with tens of thousands of Ghanaians travelling to the Gulf states in the interim, the ban is anything but that – it remains a joke, a means of intimidation by officials, a fountainhead of corruption, and a loss of government revenue to the tune of millions...

Several officials Migrant-Rights.Org spoke to all accepted that there was no clarity on the ban and maintained that the government did not want to put out a statement without introducing proper regulations...