Don't treat children's rights from a welfare perspective alone - RAINS

Tamale, July 17, GNA - The Regional Advisory Information and Network Systems (RAINS) an NGO involved in the welfare and protection of children, has advocated for a "Rights Based Approach" to addressing issues concerning children.

The NGO observed that although the Children's Act, Act 560, provides the statutory framework for the protection and orderly development of children, the full meaning had not been given to its provisions as well as provisions in other legislations.

Mr. Bakari Nyari, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of RAINS, made the call at a regional stakeholders workshop on "Child rights and trafficking," organized by RAINS in collaboration with the Department of Children in Tamale, on Friday.

He said RAINS, after several years of work with children, had come to the realization that a rights-based approach to the development of children represented a viable and sustainable option for giving expression to the real intent of Act 560.

He said that approach highlights the need to directly and meaningfully involve children in issues affecting them adding; "since issues affecting children are rightly human rights issues, we need to depart from treating them from a welfare perspective."

He said stakeholders in child rights, therefore, had the obligation to demonstrate responsibly that children were not objects of charity seeking help and compassion from society; "instead they are individuals who are entitled to protection and society must seek to provide the necessary environment to ensure their orderly development to serve as good citizens in society."

Mr. Nyari observed that there was still widespread ignorance of the law and as a result child rights were often tagged as acts of insubordination and alien concepts while in some communities there were deep rooted negative practices often enveloped as "culture".

He said there was, therefore, the need for stakeholders on children's rights to identify ways in which they could achieve a proper balance between traditional beliefs and laws so as to be able to deal with the cultural abuses of children, especially in the rural areas.

Madam Mariama Fuseine, Program Coordinator of RAINS, said the NGO had over the years been responding to the needs of children by ensuring that thousands of them were enrolled and retained in school.

She said they were also supporting local communities to deal with issues that involving child abuse and deprivation in the communities.

Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, Northern Regional Minister, in a speech read for him, said government had established the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit, of the Police to help curb child abuse and neglect in society.

He said the government had also put in place social intervention measures such as the Capitation Grant, the school feeding programme and the provision of the free school uniform to ensure that children were enrolled and retained in school.