Advertisement

NGO supports fight against child trafficking

A non-governmental Organisation committed to the cause of children has stepped up its efforts to curb child trafficking.

Mr Jones Yeboah, Chief Executive Officer of Se Eye Wo Ba Anka Foundation (SEWA), literally translated as ‘If he/she were your child’), said as part of the foundation’s core business of helping to control child trafficking, it had designed a project which involved audio-visual documentaries on the various  abuses that some children go through daily, which would be shown to travellers on board the VIP Bus Services, an Accra-based transport operator’s buses.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in a telephone interview on Tuesday, Mr Yeboah said child trafficking was one major phenomenon which had the tendency to devastate society if steps were not taken to confront it.

He said it was the responsibility of everybody to provide a safe haven for children since they were the future of society and added that any move that could derail their development should not be entertained at all.

He reiterated the need for the public to be sensitised to issues that hinder the development of children. He also said due to ignorance, poverty and broken homes, children were often “given out” by their parents and relatives to fishermen, usually with a verbal agreement, for as little as between GH¢5  and GH¢100 as a fee per annum.

He said trafficked children represented  cheap labour for the fishermen who exploited and usually kept them under bondage. They are often ill-treated, malnourished and forced to work for extremely long hours in deplorable and dangerous conditions, sometimes without adult supervision.

According to Mr Yeboah, as part of the programme, community outreach programmes would be organised to sensitise communities to the dangers and effects of child trafficking and these programmes would be carried out in both the communities of trafficked children  and fishing villages in the Volta, Central, Greater Accra and Brong Ahafo regions of Ghana.

SEWA Foundation recently announced its intention to register about 1,000 underprivileged children in the Eastern Region under the National Health Insurance Scheme as part of a nationwide drive to put 10,000 children on the National Health Insurance Scheme. GNA

Connect With Us : 0242202447 | 0551484843 | 0266361755 | 059 199 7513 |