MORE ACTION ON ELIMINATION OF CHILD LABOUR (PAGE 19, APRIL 27, 2010)

The Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare (MOESW) has developed a National Plan of Action (NPA) towards the elimination of worse forms of child labour in the country through an integrated framework and a more co-ordinated and sustained basis.
The NPA, which was drawn up in consultation with all other stakeholders concerned with children’s issues, has already been adopted and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to incorporate elimination of worse forms of child labour in their programmes.
The Deputy Minister of MOESW, Mr Antwi Boasiako Sekyere, announced this at this year’s Easter school for children across the country in Sunyani, which was held on the theme: ‘‘Child Protection is a Human Right: Bridging the Gap Between Rights and Reality’’.
The five-day Easter school for selected children from basic, junior and senior high schools, is an annual event organised by Child’s Rights International (CRI) in co-operation with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to provide a dynamic forum for children to actively participate in an open discussion about critical issues that affect their welfare and their enjoyment of children’s rights.
The active, voluntary and informed participation of the children, who also included refugees from other African countries, is at the core of the school’s agenda.
The event also celebrates and promotes children’s unique contribution as citizens of the world and values their voices and subjective experiences.
Mr Sekyere pointed out that the government considered the elimination of the worse forms of child labour as a priority for the enhancement of the living standards of its people and the sustainable development of the country.
He noted that since the year 2000, when Ghana ratified the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention No 182, dealing with the elimination of worse forms of child labour, the ILO, together with other organisations, had collaborated with the MOESW to implement child labour interventions in the areas of national policy and legal framework development, awareness creation and social mobilisation.
Under the time-bound programme, he said, 25,000 children were withdrawn and prevented from engaging in child labour, adding that the national programme for the elimination of worst forms of child labour in cocoa (NPECLC) was instituted to eliminate the problem in the cocoa sector.
The programme, Mr Sekyere noted, had supported 1,300 children in 11 cocoa-growing districts to access formal education and acquire employable skills, and that showed the government’s commitment to protect children from abuse and exploitation.
The Deputy Minister also disclosed that a Hazardous Child Labour Activity Framework (HAF), that provided a list of activities that could be termed as ‘‘hazardous’’, and conditions under which various cocoa-growing processes could become hazardous for children, had been developed and validated by stakeholders.
Additionally, he said, Child’s Rights Clubs had been formed in several communities and that the programme was currently being scaled up to cover the remaining 21 cocoa-growing areas in the country.
Mr Sekyere emphasised that protection of children in the country remained a major concern to the government and indeed all well-meaning Ghanaians, given the fact that children represented the future and the backbone of the nation.
Therefore, he reiterated that it was mandatory for society to respect, promote and protect children’s rights, irrespective of any factors, stressing that the legal and constitutional framework, had well been laid for the protection of the child in the country.
The Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC), Mrs Juliana Azumah Mensah, in a speech read on her behalf, pointed out that institutional reforms had been pursued vigorously to improve child protection and administration of all issues affecting women and children.
She said child protection was the central component in ensuring that children’s rights were respected and fulfilled and that it was apparently essential for children to effectively participate in addressing issues that affected them.
The Executive Director of CRI, Mr Bright Appiah, in a welcoming address, said: ‘‘When we do not properly care for children in this world, when they are denied their childhood, when their innocence is stolen, when they are subjected to exploitation, abuse, neglect and violence, humanity has been degraded and humanity has lost its moral compass.”
According to Mr Appiah, it was unconscionable, outrageous and deeply tragic when institutions and individuals who were meant to protect children were the very ones perpetrating violations against them.
He added that when children lost their trust and faith in people and the institutions they represented, lasting harm had been inflicted on the young citizens of a country.