Koforidua, Jan. 14, GNA - Mr Anthony Dontoh, Eastern Regional Director of the Department of Children, has asked the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Government to roll-out programmes that would tackle the incident of child trafficking in the country. He said children remained the nation's future asset and that everything ought to be done to ensure that their educational needs were well-catered for by both the state and their families. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Koforidua on Wednesday on the state of children in the Eastern Region, Mr Dontoh identified child trafficking and labour as the greatest challenges to child development and called on the new government to take urgent measures to ameliorate the situation.

He said many children were being exploited on farms as child labourers when they were supposed to be in school, noting that the hiatus that develops as result of their inability to acquire any skills could cause irreparable damage to their future aspirations. Mr Dontoh said government must design a scheme that would enable the children to continue with their education, especially from the Junior High School (JHS) to the Senior High School (SHS). He said this would prevent them from falling prey to self-centred businessmen who would lure them into their plantation to work for them for measly wages. This would require that the state offered some stipend to pay for the school needs of such needy students, especially as they made the transition from the JHS to the SHS, he said. Mr Dontoh said alternatively, the government could strengthen laboratory facilities at the JHS to enable pupils desirous of technical and vocational training to acquire some life long skills. 14 Jan. 09