Parents have been advised to ensure that all cars parked at home are securely locked to prevent children from getting access to them.
The Deputy Director of the Public Affairs Department of the Ghana Police Service, DSP Freeman Tettey, who gave the advise in an interview, said some children, in an attempt to play in the cars in their homes, had ended up dying because the cars automatically got locked while the windows had also been rolled up.
He said whether the cars were in good condition, abandoned, unserviceable or at a mechanic workshop, there was the need to lock them to prevent children from playing in them.
In May last year, two siblings, Akua Dufie, five years and Yaa Nyantakyiwaa, two years died through suffocation in a locked car. The two were said to be playing together when they entered a Ford vehicle parked in their house at Medoma near Kumasi and got locked up in it.
Again in February 2014, two young boys identified as Yussif Mensah, five years and Joel Tetteh, four years were found dead in an abandoned car at a mechanic workshop at Labadi in Accra.
The children allegedly went missing for some hours after going out to play. The owner of the shop later spotted the children trapped inside the vehicle, as they lay dead and reported the matter to the police.
DSP Tettey said “in cases where the parents cannot lock the cars, they have to ensure that the windows of the cars are not fully rolled up so that in case a child is locked in them, he or she will not suffocate”.
He also advised parents to ensure that they always knew exactly where their children played and should continue to remind them of the dangers involved in playing in abandoned cars.
He explained that apart from the fact that the car might get locked, there might also be harmful reptiles such as snakes or sharp objects that could injure them.
DSP Tettey said parents should not make their car keys accessible to children because they would want to experiment.
For mechanics, he said, they should regularly look out for children who played around their workshops, adding that anytime they were made aware that some children were lost they should quickly check all cars in their care as that could save lives of children who strayed into such vehicles.
He said parents had a responsibility to prevent such deaths and added that a parent could be held for negligently causing the death of a child when that was established.
