Child Rights NGOs call for action to rescue 1.2m Ghanaian children in forced labour

The Ghana NGO coalition on the rights of the child has reiterated calls for renewed action against child labour in Ghana.

According to statistics, over 1.2 million children are engaged in child labour across the country.

These children are usually found in mining, farming and fishing communities with others found hawking within the urban centres.

This is despite Ghana’s fine laws on the rights of the child and protection against economic activities that hamper the education, health and protection of children.

The coalition on the rights of the child has begun a series of stakeholder engagements with the media and Civil Society to step up advocacy.

Speaking to Ultimate News on the sidelines of a workshop held for journalists in Kumasi, the National Coordinator for the coalition Barima Akwasi Amankwah painted the dire picture about Ghana’s situation.

He indicated that factors fuelling child labour in Ghana stem from both ignorance of the laws and other endemic economic factors.

He explained, “It is got to do with parental neglect, some parents believe that children are supposed to work for their survival and their living which is very wrong. There is also some element of children wanting to work for themselves because of peer pressure and other things. There is also rural-urban migration accounting for this trend.”

He told Ultimate News’ Ivan Heathcote–Fumador, that the laws of Ghana have made enough provision that spells out the remits within which children are supposed to be engaged in economic activities and the punitive measures for child labour, “but what is lacking,” he admitted, “is the enforcement.”

He urged journalists to, “ensure that those who are supposed to enforce the laws are put on their toes to implement them adequately.”

Journalists who attended the event broke into dialogue sessions and proposed a number of solutions they proffer would be the best way to tackle the challenge.

The suggestions included a presidential declaration from the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to end child labour in all its forms and a taskforce set up with the same alacrity of the anti-galamsey Operation Vanguard team to go round to arrest parents who push their children into Labour.

Other suggestions from the journalists included an urgent need for government to be committed to releasing enough funds to the relevant state agencies like the police and the social welfare department to equip them adequately to be a check on such societal ills.

Some groups of journalists also proposed a stronger involvement between traditional leaders, opinion leaders, and heads of religious bodies to champion the call against child labour in their respective areas of jurisdiction.

Journalists also gave assurances of their readiness to put issues of Child Labour on the front burners in their respective media houses through advocacy, to hasten the process of ending child labour in Ghana.

A journalist with TTV in Kumasi, Theodora Aidoo told Ultimate News, “Personally, I have a passion for child-related issues and this conference is actually a call to action. I am empowered to do more in my way to educate people on the effects of child labour and the need for child rights.”

“I have realized that as media men, we need to hold our politicians to account in implementing the punitive measures to bring child labour to the barest minimum in our country. We have to champion it and always ask the lawmakers the social intervention policies they are introducing in their respective constituencies,” A writer for the Chronicle Newspaper, Richard Owusu Akyeaw indicated.