Child labour deprives children of childhood potential, dignity
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines child labour as work that deprives children of their childhood, potential and dignity, and which is harmful to their physical and mental development.
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In developing countries such as Ghana, most of these children are engaged in the manufacturing, agriculture, fishing, mining, construction or service industries, and are deprived of education, and sometimes exposed to occupational, health and environmental hazards.
In some extreme forms, child labour involves children being trafficked, enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves.
Statistics
According to a survey by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), more than 21 per cent of children in Ghana are still engaged in child labour.
A report which was released by the GSS in 2014 indicated that 21.8 per cent of children aged 5 to 17 (about 1.9 million) were engaged in child labour while 14.5 per cent of the children covered in the survey were engaged in hazardous child labour.
Poverty and low incomes are said to be the main underlying causes of the children who had to sometimes work for long hours which are also said to be associated with detrimental effects to the child’s total development.
Nonetheless, not all work that children are involved in is termed as child labour, and the Children’s Act of 1998 permits children aged 13 to 14 years to engage in “light” family work.
That is, work which is not likely to be harmful to the health or development of the child and does not affect the child's attendance at school or the capacity of the child to benefit from school work.
Non-governmental organisations such as Challenging Heights and Child's Right have over the years played critical roles by rescuing some trafficked children who are engaged in child labour.
World Child Labour Day
To raise awareness and step up activism to prevent child labour, every June 12 is marked as World Child Labour Day to foster the worldwide movement against child labour in any form. The day was first launched in 2002 by the ILO.
A press launch was held at the Press Centre in Accra yesterday to announce the 2016 World Child Labour Day, on the theme: “End Child Labour in supply chains in Ghana.”
At the launch, the Project Director of the ILO, Madam Lalaina Rasafindrakoto said “until parents are able to support themselves financially, children will continue to be used to help top up household incomes in all stages of supply chains including in agriculture, fishing, mining, retail and other sectors.”
“Until buyers stop purchasing goods that are tainted with child labour from their suppliers, until effective and robust monitoring mechanisms are in place, until better alternatives to child labour, including free quality education and vocational training are available, child labour will never be eliminated, it may even get worse,” she added.
Serious problem
The Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relation, Mr Baba Jamal, in his speech, said 21 per cent of children were estimated to be engaged in child labour, describing the issue as “a breach of the constitutional and fundamental human rights of children and a liability to socio-economic development.”
Even though he acknowledged that poverty was the core problem of child labour, he argued that other contributory factors, such as ignorance and misconceptions, inadequacies of the school system and institutional weakness in the application of labour laws, were some reasons for the act.
He, therefore, advocated for effective collaborations between the government and agencies to strengthen the system to provide effective protection for the rights of children and urged the media to use their platforms to educate Ghanaians to encourage parents to desist from engaging children in activities that were against the laws and child rights.
The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Mr Sulemana Braimah, who chaired the event, said it was time to mobilise all efforts and policies towards addressing child labour, which is a hindrance to the progress of “our future leaders”.