Ghana makes efforts to curb child labour

CHILD labour refers to the engagement of children in exploitative labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organisations and is illegal in many countries.
In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age is made to perform certain duties. These however exclude household chores, assisting in a family shop, or school-related work.
In those countries, an employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below the minimum age, mostly below 18 years. This minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved.
But what do we see in developing countries such as Ghana? Child labour is very prevalent in most, if not all developing countries. In 2008 there were about 215 million children working illegally in the eyes of international law across the world. About 14 per cent of children around the world under age 18 are said to be engaged in child labour. In addition, an estimated number of 115 million children under age 14 are said to be engaged in hazardous work.
These hazardous works include handling of chemicals, carrying of heavy loads and enduring long hours of work, which threaten the safety and health of these children.
In Ghana, the Western and Eastern regions of the country, as well as the three regions of the North, have the most reported cases of child labour. Majority of these children are engaged in hazardous forms of labour.
One major problem which causes child labour in Ghana is poverty. There are reports to indicate that poor parents who can hardly fend for themselves and their children send their under-aged children to work under unfavourable conditions, sometimes away from home and in strange lands.
Attempt to eliminate child labour have most of the time failed because of the high rate of illiteracy. Poor parents are unable to send their children to school either because of high cost of schooling or inaccessibility. In some cases cultural pressures also undermine long term value of education especially for the girl child. Because of this, girls are most often compelled to quit education for marriage at a tender age.
In most cases, poor parents who find it difficult to make ends meet sell out their children to child traffickers who in turn use them for all manner of work.
These children are sometimes sold into slavery, engaged in hazardous activities, such as rock quarrying in mining areas, illegal mining activities, fishing especially in the coastal areas and on the Volta Lake and other big rivers in parts of the country.
The news that Ghana now has a Child Labour Monitoring System in place, is therefore a welcome news. That is in addition to the development of a National Plan of Action for the elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour in Ghana. The Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, Mr E. T Mensah made reference to the issue at a recent meet-the-press in Accra and said the initiatives were being worked at in collaboration with other agencies.
The document, according to the Minister had been approved of by Cabinet for implementation to benefit the Ghanaian child.
Touching on the child labour monitoring system, he said it was initiated to help combat child labour in Ghana. It is a data-base monitoring system in which active mechanism of repeated observation and identification are used to track down child labour cases.
It facilitates effective child labour interventions by identifying child labourers and linking them to satisfactory and sustainable alternatives such as schooling and skill training.
Mr Mensah noted that there had been several actions taken by various agencies of governmental, non- governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society organisations and other corporate bodies towards eliminating child labour.
The purpose of Child Labour Monitoring System is to integrate efforts of all interest groups into action to achieve a common goal of eliminating child labour.
Several laws have been passed by the government on child labour. A number of treaties have also been signed to guard against exploitative child labour. Article 28 of the 1992 constitution prohibits labour considered as injurious to the health, education or development of a child.
As we all know, Ghana has also signed three key international treaties that ban certain practices of child labour. There is also the Children’s Act of 1998 and the Labour Act of 2003, both of which address child labour in details but the problem still persists.
It is unfortunate that,in spite of all these efforts, child labour persists in Ghana even though there seem to be some reduction in recent time as many parents prefer to send their children to school.
Child labour in Ghana, according to child rights activists has been the result of poverty, illiteracy or lack of education as well as less stringent implementation of child labour laws.
To help reduce the phenomenon, the government should make education more accessible to children through the provision of infrustructural facilities and educational materials.
For their parts, parents should be held responsible for the neglect of the upbringing of their children and to ensure that the guidelines as contained in the Child Labour Monitoring System, works; monitoring system should be effective.