Original subtitles

Welcome to Global Eye from the BBC World Service.

Every week, we bring you the best in the World Service's

investigative journalism, as well as unmissable reporting

from BBC teams around the globe.

I'm Aleem Maqbool, and this week we're in Ghana.

The wounds of slavery are still raw here

and Ghana's led calls

for financial reparations for the slave trade.

But will it require more than just money to heal generational trauma?

Also on the programme,

BBC Eye gets exclusive access to Interpol officers

as they help a father in Sierra Leone search

for his children and hunt down the traffickers who took them.

And we'll find out why the price of gold reached record highs this year,

and why that might be bad news for the state of the world.

In recent months in particular, Ghana has been at the forefront of

a landmark global campaign on the issue of reparations,

calling for institutions and nation states around

the world that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade

to acknowledge their complicity,

to apologise for it and to start to make financial amends.

It is a campaign that is gaining considerable traction.

But why is Ghana leading this charge?

What, in practical terms, is it asking for?

And will anything really be achieved,

given the vehement opposition from some people to it?

Well, we've come a few hours' drive

from Accra to Cape Coast Castle, and this is,

without exaggeration, one of the most haunting,

most moving places I've ever been to.

It was run from the 17th century by the British,

and this is where huge numbers of enslaved people

were forced from all over West Africa.

Why were they brought here?

Well, this is a spot that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Before they were put on ships,

this dank dungeon is where the female slaves were held,

and it is difficult to describe the emotion you feel

knowing the suffering and fear there was here.

Now, there has been a big push for Britain to truly acknowledge

what happened here and to many, many other slaves.

But there's also been a push

for British institutions to do the same thing.

It's why the Archbishop of Canterbury,

Dame Sarah Mullally, leader of the Church of England, visited here.

When they stepped out, they were chained

and waited in line till they got a sizeable group,

and then they were marched through that door.

So that door became known as the Door of No Return.

The church's missionary wing ran slave plantations,

individual clergy owned slaves,

the church accepted money from slave traders

and invested directly in the trade.

Well, this is that door of no return through which slaves

were marched, often dragged.

And when Dame Sarah Mullally came here, she was full of emotion.

She felt moved to pray at this door as well.

And she said all of this made her reflect

on the responsibility of the institution she now leads

in all of this suffering.

We have to recognise that, as a church, we played that part.

We have to apologise for that.

Part of the Christian belief

in repentance is, when you repent, you turn round.

There's something about action.

That action comes in the way of a £100 million fund

the church has committed to help make amends,

but there's a push for nations to commit to reparations.

Well, earlier this year, at the United Nations,

Ghana tabled a resolution to recognise

the transatlantic slave trade as the greatest crime against humanity.

That resolution was passed,

but that's in spite of the fact that all European nations

abstained from the vote.

Nevertheless, why is it that Ghana is leading this charge?

Ghana was the crime scene where these atrocities took place.

More than 12.5 million Africans forcibly removed,

torn from their families, from homes, from villages.

Ghana cannot afford

to be silent on this consequential matter,

which has to do with historical justice.

Well, you had those oppressors, those who profited,

who were from some tribes here in Ghana themselves.

Look, the entire transatlantic enslavement and chattel enslavement

of Africans was designed, choreographed,

curated by the West.

So we don't buy that argument. There's just a few, you know,

elements who were coerced by those who designed the system,

but it doesn't make Africans culpable.

Well, some tribal leaders here have apologised

for the complicity of their ancestors in the slave trade,

like King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, of the Ga people

who spoke to us in a rare interview.

I still stand on the same point of apologising...

...on behalf of all traditional authority...

...my ancestors and forebears for the part they also played...

...in the slavery of our brothers and sisters.

Does that mean that some tribes here

need to think about what they can do in terms of reparations?

Yes, I believe that we...

must go beyond the aspect of an apology.

So that is the way you yourself are thinking... Yes.

...about what you can contribute.

That we can contribute.

Well, another dimension to Ghana's campaign

is to try to attract people from the diaspora to return,

as they call it, to West Africa.

And so that has been going on for the last few years,

particularly attracting a lot of African Americans,

a lot of them you see

and hear around this arts market in Accra.

This is really... You're talking about catering

for an American... Exactly.

...African American market. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

And it is an art market that's changed.

We're here to meet Yaw Asare, an academic researcher,

but one who used to work at Ghana's diaspora office.

He's loved the gathering

of black people from all over the world here,

but says reparations and this project to bring back

the diaspora should be about repair, not bringing in cash.

We are dealing with humans. We are dealing with people,

you know, who as a result of, you know...

So we cannot reduce them to,

oh, come see this site, pay this much, and then...

So I would say the excessive focus on tourism.

And I thought that maybe that would have been a good time

for us to also deal with some things that morally are not right.

Like, for example, why should a diasporic African pay

as much as a white person in the slave dungeons?

Well, it is Yaw's view and the view of many other sociologists here

that such is the generational fear in West Africa

that, in spite of the vast lands that, for example,

Ghana has, people here build their homes

very closely together because they're worried

that if they live away from the community, they could get taken.

Now, reparations in the form

of money might help in some capacity,

but it's clearly going to take much more than just cash

to repair trauma as deep as that.

Now, human trafficking scams promising jobs abroad

in exchange for money are increasingly being

detected across West Africa,

including here in Ghana and also in Sierra Leone.

The victims often spend thousands of dollars

on jobs that never materialise,

and are also then held captive

and coerced into recruiting friends and family.

BBC Eye has been given exclusive access

to Interpol and the Sierra Leone police

as they target the trafficking networks and also try

to help one father find his missing children.

Saidu Bah reports from Makeni in Sierra Leone's northern province.

Young people across West Africa

are becoming victims of a trafficking scam.

The scam works like this - young people

are lured in by offers of work in America, Canada, Dubai or Europe,

but first they have to pay large sums of money to join.

Once they've paid, they are trafficked to

a neighbouring country in West Africa.

They are told that, before they can travel,

they must recruit others,

pretending to them that they've already

travelled abroad and they are living the dream.

Traffickers are pretending to be associated with

a legitimate global brand called Qnet,

which they are using as a front for their illegal activities.

Qnet is a wellness and lifestyle company founded in Hong Kong.

But its name has been a byword for this type of trafficking.

We don't have official statistics on victims,

but there seems to be hundreds in Makeni,

a city in northern Sierra Leone.

Some have come from Guinea, Ivory Coast and Mali.

Two young Guineans have been missing for more than a year.

They are believed to be victims of trafficking scam.

Mahmoud Conteh from Sierra Leone's police

has been asked by Interpol Guinea to rescue them.

Their family has paid over 25,000 USD to the traffickers.

A source tells him the young people may be in Makeni.

Why do you think Makeni is becoming a hub for human trafficking?

It's like Makeni is in the centre,

almost in the centre of Sierra Leone,

and it's very easy for traffickers

to manoeuvre across each of our borders,

at these illegal crossing points.

The children's father has travelled across the border

from Guinea to Makeni.

His 18-year-old daughter and 22-year-old son were recruited

from their remote village.

His son has been sending the family messages begging for help.

For weeks, the police source has been monitoring

several locations where young people are known to be held captive.

HE GIVES COMMAND

Foday is joining the police on the raid.

He is hoping to see his children for the first time in a year.

OK.

Hey, gentlemen. Stay inside. Stay.

Inside, there is a large group of people, some as young as 14.

They are mainly from neighbouring countries.

It seems about ten to 15 people

are sleeping on the floor in each room.

There is no sign of the traffickers.

Foday Musa asks around to see if anyone knows his children.

But it becomes clear they are not here.

One young man claims to have seen them.

This is the first potential sighting we've had of them.

The young people who have been found will be transferred

to the police station for screening

before being taken back to their home countries.

While in Makeni, a survivor of a labour trafficking scam

tells me she paid traffickers 1,000 USD

hoping to travel to America.

She wants to be anonymous for her safety.

It has been three days of searching and raids,

but Foday's children have not been found.

The trafficking bosses then get in touch with the police.

They want to secure the release of a gang member

arrested in an earlier raid.

The police use this opportunity

to ask the release for these children.

LINE RINGS

Hello?

Mm-hm.

Yeah.

The police say they will not accept money from the traffickers,

and that it is just a tactic.

But it is still shocking to me to see how easy

it is for them to pick up the phone and negotiate in this way.

If the police know who the bosses are,

and have an open line of communication,

it begs the question - why are they not arresting them?

They plan to meet face-to-face with the traffickers

never materialises,

and Foday returns to Guinea without his children.

After five days, time and money have run out

and Mahmoud and his team must return to Freetown.

Shortly after their last raid, the police received news

that the traffickers have released Foday's children.

HORN TOOTS

A few weeks later, Foday's daughter confirms

she is back in Guinea, but she has not returned to her village.

He still doesn't know where his son is.

Sierra Leone police says

it has conducted over 20 raids in the last year...

...rescuing hundreds of victims of human trafficking.

While we don't know the exact reasons

why Foday's children haven't gone home,

we do know that many young people who have been trafficked

are often scared to return

due to the shame and stigma of being scammed.

You can watch the full-length documentary,

Hunting The Traffickers, on BBC iPlayer

and on the BBC World Service YouTube channel.

Here's some more World Service content

that made an impact this week.

In the wake of the powerful earthquake that struck Colombia,

BBC Mundo provided comprehensive coverage of the aftermath.

Alongside in-depth analysis of the science behind the tragedy,

Mundo gathered dramatic testimony from survivors,

and was at the front line of Colombia's rescue effort.

You can find BBC Mundo stories,

videos and live streams on its official website

and on the BBC Mundo YouTube channel.

For centuries, gold has been mined in Ghana.

It remains one of Africa's biggest gold producers.

But now, in an increasingly uncertain world,

the strategic global importance of gold is rising once again.

In an age of electronic payments and digital currencies,

there is a modern gold rush under way.

In 2025 and in early 2026,

the price of gold reached unprecedented levels.

So what's behind this scramble, and what can gold tell us about

the changing geopolitics of the 21st century?

The World Service's global journalism team has more.

Before money was paper or plastic, a lot of it was actually gold.

These coins are thought to be among the first-ever minted,

in the sixth century BC.

They were used by the ancient Lydian society in what's now Turkey.

Gold was easier to carry and trade with than, say, cattle or timber.

And exchanging coins for goods helped expand global trade routes.

Fast forward to the late 1800s,

when gold started to be swapped for cash.

This was known as the gold standard,

when a fixed amount of local currency

was equivalent to an ounce of gold.

One of the quirks of the gold standard is that in many countries,

it was illegal to own gold.

So in 1933,

President Roosevelt called in all the gold

that was owned by private citizens in the United States.

The United States must take firmly in its own hands

the control of the gold value of our dollar.

Then, in 1944, the global benchmark shifted.

World leaders met and decided their currencies

would be pegged to the dollar,

and it would be backed by gold at $35 an ounce.

The US dollar struggled to sustain that fixed price,

especially because of the economic turmoil of the Vietnam War.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon made this announcement.

I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily

the convertibility of the dollar into gold.

But the move was permanent and ended the gold standard.

It was only in 1974 that US citizens were able to buy gold again.

Other countries were able to own it,

but it certainly was nowhere near as accessible

as it has become over the last couple of decades.

Finally available to buy on the market, prices started to rise.

And something interesting happened.

You'll notice a number of spikes -

this one after the Iranian revolution,

then this steep curve following the 2008 financial crash,

peaking after the Eurozone crisis in 2010.

This blip in 2020, that's the Covid pandemic.

Each spike can be traced back to a particular economic

or political shock.

And the biggest peak of all - 2026.

More on that later.

People buy gold in times of crisis

because it's what's known as a safe haven asset.

There are a few reasons for this.

People think of gold as a safe haven because it's not connected

to one particular government

or one particular economy or one particular market.

And, as we mentioned earlier,

there's a more or less fixed amount of gold.

Unlike paper money, you can't just print more.

It can't be created and fabricated out of thin air, through alchemy.

And so this sort of controls the supply

and sustains an underlying value behind the demand for gold.

And the biggest buyers are countries.

This is how much is held by the top ten central banks.

The United States has the most gold -

nearly as much as Germany, Italy and France combined.

But many countries are increasing their stockpiles.

Poland and China added around 300 tonnes,

while India and Turkey also purchased significant amounts.

If there's an economic shock,

it's a central bank's job to soften the blow.

And gold can be an extremely useful tool.

Gold's not just a pile of shiny bricks

that looks good in your bank vault.

It's a genuine financial asset that you can use in times of crisis.

And that's exactly what's happening at the moment.

Again, this is a pattern we see in the data -

a big rise followed by a steep fall

as investors sell gold quickly to get cash.

In 2022, another shock after Russia invaded Ukraine.

That year, central banks doubled their gold purchases.

But it wasn't just about having gold for a rainy day.

When Russian assets were frozen,

it was a reminder that assets held abroad

could be at risk during a period of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Some central banks have been moving their gold

from hubs in London and New York.

They're bringing it closer to home to make it easier to access.

That central bank buying started to push the gold price up.

In 2024, it went up by 26%.

In 2025, 65%,

when the normal average is about 10% a year.

As well as an increase in demand, politics also came into play.

We saw a new administration in the United States

making lots of pronouncements and executive orders,

which really shocked and surprised participants in global markets.

When the global economy is facing difficult times,

or whether it's unprecedented political pressures,

then gold can perform a lot better.

The more the price went up,

the more it became attractive to buy,

with many wanting to get into gold before it hit a new high point.

In January, a new record -

over $5,500 an ounce.

But what goes up must come down.

And that's been true for gold prices, too.

There are a few reasons for this.

Investors have been ditching gold as the price drops.

Central banks are selling some gold stocks

to shore up their finances,

especially because of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

The war put pressure on the global economy,

and central banks may need to step in and increase interest rates.

And if the interest rate goes up,

investors tend to buy more dollars,

because, unlike gold, you can make interest on dollars.

While the dollar might have become

a little bit more favourable in the near term,

it doesn't mean that gold has become unfavourable.

It just means that the focus in the short term has shifted.

And if history tells us anything,

it's that when things get bumpy, again and again, we go back to gold.

Well, thanks for joining me in Ghana.

We'll be back next week. Goodbye.