The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) has warned that the galamsey crisis in Ghana has reached a level that poses a direct threat to national stability, describing it as not only an environmental disaster but also a human rights emergency.
The warning follows a promotion mission undertaken in Ghana from 29th September to 2nd October 2025, during which the Commission engaged with government officials, civil society groups, and affected communities.
According to the Commission, in a statement read by Commissioner responsible for the promotion of human rights in Ghana, and Special Rapporteur on Rights of Women in Africa, Janet Ramatoulie Sallah-Njie stated that the illegal mining menace has caused widespread contamination of water bodies with heavy metals such as mercury, devastated cocoa farmlands that are critical to food security and export earnings, and driven up school dropout rates as children are drawn into mining activities. Galamsey areas, the Commission noted, have also become hotspots for child trafficking, sexual exploitation, and abuses against women and vulnerable groups, who are forced to live in hazardous conditions that compromise their health and dignity.
“The entrenched complicity of political actors and compromised security forces has further deepened the crisis,” the Commission said, stressing that without bold and coordinated action, Ghana risks long-term instability.
Commission’s Recommendations
The ACHPR outlined a series of urgent recommendations for the Government of Ghana, including:
Security Measures: Declare key mining regions as security zones to enable a coordinated, decisive, and sustained intervention to halt illegal mining.
Accountability: Launch a high-level, independent investigation with strong anti-corruption safeguards to dismantle the political and security networks benefitting from galamsey.
Public Health: Conduct independent health impact assessments in affected areas and provide immediate relief to victims of heavy metal poisoning.
Education & Child Protection: Roll out scholarships and school rehabilitation programmes in mining communities to stem high dropout rates and rescue children from exploitative labor.
Agriculture & Livelihoods: Establish an emergency fund for cocoa farmers and launch a national land rehabilitation initiative to restore farmlands and water bodies.
Economic Alternatives: Create viable opportunities through vocational training and the formalization of responsible small-scale mining, with a focus on youth and vulnerable groups such as head porters (kayayei).
The Galamsey Crisis
The Commission emphasized that galamsey has evolved beyond an environmental issue to become a multi-sectoral crisis undermining public health, education, agriculture, and national security.
Women and children in mining areas, it noted, face some of the harshest consequences, including exposure to toxic environments, reproductive health complications, and lifelong health conditions.
The ACHPR urged Ghana to treat galamsey as an existential threat requiring urgent political will, transparency, and international support, warning that failure to act decisively could erode the country’s democratic and developmental gains.
Story by: Fred Duhoe
