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Ministry holds consultative meeting on child
The Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations organised a consultative meeting in Accra on Monday, November 30, 2020 aimed at developing a clear road map to achieve Goal Eight Target Seven (8.7) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDG 8.7 directs all United Nations member states to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate child labour, human trafficking, modern-day slavery and forced labour by 2030.
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The meeting was also to prepare the country to formalise its status as a pathfinder country and be part of Alliance 8.7, a global platform that brings together various countries and actors passionate about achieving SDG 8.7.
Meeting
The Director of Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, Ms Emma Ofori Agyemang, explained that attaining a pathfinder status would help the country accelerate efforts in eliminating child labour by 2025 and modern-day slavery by 2030.
“This consultation exercise is to feed into that national strategy where we will formally announce our presence and also to show the road map as to how we are committing to the process,” she said.
“We have already expressed interest nationally to become a pathfinder country early this year and these workshops are ushering us into becoming a pathfinder. We must have a national strategic workshop to tell the path which we are going,” she added.
After attaining the pathfinder status, Ms Agyemang said the country would have access to technical support for the preparation of strategic planning workshops, showcase progress and successful interventions in regional and international events, using the Alliance as a platform, among others.
She added that the country would also have the opportunity to try new approaches and collaborate with other countries, conduct research and share knowledge on protecting the rights of people.
Ms Agyemang, therefore, urged stakeholders to step up efforts to achieve the objectives of Alliance 8.7.
Child labour
A Government of Ghana Consultant on child labour, Mr Emmanuel Kwame Mensah, who was at the meeting, reiterated that the meeting was to help the country build a strong collaboration of all national partners to achieve the SDG 8.7.
He said apart from the international partnership and goal, the country had a constitutional mandate to ensure that children were protected under Article 28 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.
He said in Ghana, although current statistics on child labour were not available, he said the last statistics conducted by the Ghana Living Standard Survey Round Six in 2014 showed that over 9.1 million children, that is one out of every five children, were involved in child labour.
“Statistics also show that before we had 16 regions, child labour was seen in all regions, significant in the northern regions and Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions,” he said.
He called on stakeholders to step up efforts to eliminate all forms of child labour, particulary as 2021 had been declared the Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.
