Impose night Curfew on children ...

..during CAN 2008-CRI

Kumasi, Dec. 7, GNA- Children's Rights International (CRI), a non-governmental organization (NGO), has proposed the imposition of a night curfew on all children below age 18 years during the upcoming 2008 Africa Cup of Nations competition, to be organized in Ghana. The NGO, a child advocacy group, also recommended that children in that category in the boarding schools should be kept under strict supervision during the period.

Mr. Bright Kweku Appiah, Executive Director of CRI, who made the suggestion at the inauguration of child rights clubs and peer educators groups in the Ashanti Region, in Kumasi on Thursday, suggested that the curfew should start from 2000 hours to 0600 hours the next day. He said such a move would protect children from all forms of exploitation and child labour that could take place during the competition.

Mr. Appiah said children could contract HIV/AIDS due to child prostitution and other forms of sexual abuses that are likely to take place during the competition.

Mr. Appiah said "The best interest of the child shall be the primary consideration by any court, person, institution or other body in any matter concerned with a child." He appealed to the security agencies to periodically monitor the activities of children in the cities and town to help preserve their future.

Professor Sekye Awuku Amoah, Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, inaugurated the clubs and inducted into office executives of the clubs from the various second cycle schools in the Region said. He said HIV/AIDS was affecting national development and the negative impact of the disease on children and the youth should be a major source of concern to all Ghanaians. Prof Amoah said 42 million people were infected with the HIV/AIDS worldwide and 34 million African children became orphans because their parents died of the disease. He also some of the children dropped-out of school because of stigmatization or lack of funds from their families to support their education.

Prof Amoah urged the peer educators to give psychologically support to people with HIV/AIDS and note that that was lacking in most of the programmes designed for people with AIDS.

Mr. Emmanuel Asamoah Owusu-Ansah, the Regional Minister, said the government ensured the enactment of the Children's Rights Act in 1998 and Juvenile Justice Act in 2003, passage of the Child Trafficking Act in 2005 and the New Education Reform that included early childhood care and development all to protect children from all forms of child abuse and neglect.

He expressed worry about the Region recording the highest rate of child abuse in the country with 1,346 cases out of 5,049 cases. Patience Yaa Amankwah, a student of Saint Louis Senior High School and an Educator cautioned her colleagues that the training given to them, was to help them become initiators but not to disobey and disrespect adults.