Abuse of children and mothers dominant in Upper West

Wa, Jan. 18, GNA - Lack of maintenance of children and mothers, especially teenage mothers, has been identified to be the most prevalent and most worse form of human rights abuse in the Upper West Region. Out of about 349 cases of human rights abuses that were recorded last year in the region, 229 of them fell within that category.

Mr. Siddique Ubeidu, the Acting Regional Director of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) made this known to failure by fathers to provide their wives and children with basic necessities such as shelter, clothing, food, education and health. He attributed the problem to the high level of poverty and illiteracy as well as irresponsible behaviour by some parents. He called for the provision of quality education for children and their mothers properly catered for as they constituted a significant percentage of the country's population. "Lack of education and employment breeds criminals, it is therefore important to educate our children well so that they can become responsible and contribute to the economic growth of the country", he said.

Touching on other forms of human rights abuses in the region, Mr. Ubeidu mentioned failure to honour obligations or pay End of Service Benefits (ESB) by some employers as some of the cases that the Commission had been trying to resolve. He said the Commission was engaged in public education through meetings with opinion leaders in the communities including formation of human rights clubs in senior high schools in the region. "We counsel women too on the need to venture into income generating activities to enable them support their families". He said the Commission lacked resources, especially transport, to enable it function effectively and called on philanthropists, NGOs and other organisations that were into human rights issues to come to assist.