Govt calls for collaboration in fight against child labour
The government has called for more stakeholder collaboration to end child labour to safeguard the future of all Ghanaian children.
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While agreeing that ending child labour was the primary responsibility of the government, the Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Baba Jamal, said it was virtually impossible for the government to make any meaningful impact without the support of stakeholders.
In particular, he said the government recognised the role of the trade unions and employers in the fight against child labour.
Child labour in Ghana is defined as engaging a child below 18 years in a work that deprives him or her of his or her childhood, potential and dignity and which is harmful to his or her physical and mental development.
Business forum
Baba Jamal was speaking at a business forum to mark the 2016 International Day Against Child Labour in Accra yesterday.
Participants in the forum discussed how stakeholders could effectively collaborate to eliminate child labour.
The national theme for the celebration was: “End child labour in the supply chain in Ghana: Together we can”.
The World Day Against Child Labour was instituted in 2002 by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to raise awareness of child labour and step up activism to prevent the act.
The day, which is observed on June 12, every year, is to foster the worldwide movement against child labour in any form.
Human resource development
Baba Jamal said the government was committed to human resource development through education and skills training.
Such development, he said, began with the building of a solid foundation through access to quality education which, most often, victims of child labour were deprived of.
“It is unfortunate to note that some Ghanaian children cannot access this opportunity to realise their full potential so that they are able to contribute to national development due to their engagement in child labour at the most crucial stages of their lives,” he said.
He said even though the 2016 celebration was focused on child labour in the supply chain of the economy, the practice occurred in many unassuming forms, including domestic child labour, making them concealed, for which reason they were not addressed.
Baba Jamal said the fight had become complex because trade unions and employers’ organisations were either weak or absent to ensure that engaging children as human resource was avoided, among other challenges.
Even though he acknowledged that poverty was the core problem for child labour, he contended that other contributory factors, such as ignorance and misconceptions, inadequacy of the school system and institutional weakness in the application of labour laws, were reasons for the act.
While commending stakeholders and development partners for their immense role in the fight against child labour in the country, Baba Jamal called for a more pragmatic approach to ending the menace to safeguard a bright future for the future human resource.
Other stakeholders
For her part, the Project Director of the ILO, Ms Lalaina Rasafindrakoto, mentioned free quality education, effective social protection and the creation of decent jobs as some intervention measures to curb the menace.
In the supply chain, she said employers should set standards that prevented employing children.
She pledged the ILO’s support for all national interventions to end child labour.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, Mr Suleiman Koney, said children formed the human capital for the future, hence the need to take critical steps to safeguard their future.