Ghana celebrates World Day against Child Labour

Ghana will on June 12 join the rest of the world to celebrate World Day against Child Labour, which aims at eliminating the worst forms of child labour.

It must meet the 2016 deadline stipulated by UNICEF to eliminate the worst forms of child labour.

In line with the deadline, the government launched a comprehensive multi-sector National Plan of Action in June 2010, aimed at coordinating all activities around the menace

A statement signed by James Annan, President of Challenging Heights and copied to Ghana News Agency said, June 2015 is only 12 months away, and the nation is still confronted with a considerable number of children selling on the streets during school hours.

It said others could be found at mines, on plantations, or locked away in private homes, or in the fishing industry on Lake Volta.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that there are more than 49,000 children toiling while more than 168 million children from five -17 years were involved in child labour in 2012.

“The world has therefore made a significant progress in the fight against child labour even though data in “our part of the world is not reliable, but it is estimated that over 1.3 million of those children suffering today are in Ghana”.

“Institutions which are supposed to lead the fight against child labour such as the Child Labour Unit of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations is heavily dependent on ILO and UNICEF for its work, budgetary allocation to the Human Trafficking Secretariat of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has not been received and the Human Trafficking Fund, which is a creation of the Human Trafficking Law, has been empty for years”

The Challenging Height President also noted that the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service has opened offices in almost all 10 regions in Ghana, yet it did not have the resources to move to conduct swoops on traffickers

“While the Children’s Act 1998 continue to receive international praise for being one of the most comprehensive laws on children’s right, in practice it sits impotently on the desks of the police while our children continue to suffer.”

The statement said it was therefore surprising that at the launch of the day in Accra, Mr Antwi Boasiako Sekyere, outgoing Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, said that the Economic Community of West African States had highly commended Ghana for the strides it has made in addressing child labour.

It questioned the basis for which ECOWAS commended Ghana when obviously there were several good but unenforced laws and policies to protect children.

“I acknowledge that there have been a number of efforts both on the part of government and on the part of civil society. I don’t believe the prevalence of child labour is the same as it was in 2001 though we don’t know how much less. We have made some progress that we cannot show statistically. But government effort is not sufficient, and it is too donor dependent!” it added

The day is set aside each year by the (ILO) to draw the world’s attention to the millions of children around the world whose rights were being denied.

In Ghana the day will be marked by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations with a grand durbar at the Teachers Hall in Accra.