(Action Plan to eradicate child labour in the offing)

Page 13, June 12, 2009
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah & Daniel Nkrumah
THE Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare is finalising a seven-year National Plan of Action (NPA) to eradicate all worst forms of child labour in the country by 2015.
The sector minister, Mr Stephen Amoanor Kwao who announced this in Parliament yesterday, said, when finalised and adopted, the NPA would provide the necessary focus and impetus for eliminating child labour in a timely, efficient, effective and sustainable manner.
“Ghana has indeed made a lot of strides in dealing with the child labour problem. Much more, however needs to be done”, he said.
Mr Kwao, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lower Manya, was presenting a statement on the floor of Parliament to commemorate World Day Against Child Labour, which is celebrated around the world on June 12, every year.
The theme for the celebration for this year is: “Give girls a chance: End child labour”.
The day is set aside to remind the world about the plight of millions of children of school age, who are out of school and working in dangerous situation, damaging their health, morals and proper development.
Mr Kwao said it was important to note that it was acceptable in the country that children worked as an integral part of the sensitisation process and a means transmitting acquired skills from parents.
He stated that children had been working throughout by helping their parents to care for the home and the family by performing light work such as assisting in family business.
Mr Kwao said those activities were positive and contributed to a child’s development and provide the child with skills, positive attitudes and experience useful in the quest to make the child a productive member of the society.
He explained that child labour on the other hand was work which was morally, physically, socially and mentally dangerous and harmful to children.
“It is work which deprives children of education or prevents them from benefiting fully from schooling as a result of either combining heavy and long hours of work with schooling or dropping out of school completely to undertake activities”.
He said the government, together with its social partners, was not relenting on its efforts to find appropriate solutions to the problem, adding that when the country ratified the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 182, a lot of interventions had been implemented in specific sectors of the economy.
Mr Kwao said that had resulted the development of policy and legislation and the implementation of small-scale direct action in identifying, withdrawing and rehabilitating children in various worst forms of child labour across the country.
Contributing to the statement, the MP for Odododiodioo, Mr Jonathan Tackie-Komme said the most recent ILO report (Geneva 2006) estimated that there were 218 million child labourers world-wide out of which 100 million were girls.
He stated that a number of girls in Ghana, who should had been in school were working, often in some of the worst forms of child labour.
Mr Tackie-Komme said although education was vital, it could not on its own address child labour among girls.
He, therefore, called for the reduction of poverty through the provision of social safety nets for poor families, enforcement of child labour laws and the protection of children rights, among other measures.
The MP commended some non-governmental organisations such as IN Network Ghana, which had contributed to the fight against child labour in the Kpeshie South and Ashiedu Keteke sub metros in the Greater Accra Region and some places in the Central Region.