‘Let’s unite against child labour’
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), an international non-governmental organisation, has called for a concerted effort by stakeholders in the fight against child labour and its related issues in the country.
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Speaking at a durbar at Bortianor, a suburb of Accra, to mark this year’s Human Right Day, the Regional Co-ordinator of the CHRI, Mrs Mina Mensah, said until stakeholders teamed up and worked together as one unified institution, it would be difficult for Ghana to deal with matters relating to child labour which continued to hinder the country’s development.
This year’s Human Right Day is on the theme; “Child labour deprives children of their right to development.”
Child labour at Bortianor
She said the reason why Bortianor was selected for this year’s Human Right Day commemoration by the CHRI was that most of the children in the area were subjected to child labour.
Mrs Mensah mentioned fishing and stone quarrying as major activities which children under 18 years in Bortianor were exposed to, adding that “this activity, if not properly checked, could endanger the future of the children at Bortianor”.
The role of the media
A Programme Officer of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Accra, Mr Emmanuel Mensah, said ignorance on the part of the general public was the major impediment to the fight against child labour in Ghana.
He said many people were ignorant or had limited understanding of the child labour phenomenon and its effect on children.
Mr Mensah said many media practitioners in Ghana had no thorough understanding of child labour issues and were, therefore, unaware of the international, national and local legal frameworks, interventions, policies, programmes and existing projects addressing them.
Mr Mensah said the general public was not privy to available knowledge and statistics to adequately support the fight against child labour, which hampers the efforts of stakeholders in the sector. He called for more effective collaborations between the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, International Labour Organisation, the media, the general public and other associated organisations to intensify their fight against the phenomenon to achieve the desired results for national development.