Board calls for protection of children

The President of Ghana National Children and Youth Advisory Board, Mr. Emmanuel Donkoh Okuta, has called on district assemblies to strengthen institutions that protect children and the youth.

He said assemblies should implement Section 27 of the Children’s ACT 560 of 1992 that mandates them to establish child panels in their localities.

These will serve as platform for children and the youth to report cases that hinder their survival, protection, participation and development.

Mr. Okuta said this in a speech he delivered at a stakeholders’ meeting organized by Plan Ghana at Ekumfie Eyisam where a Global Youth Voices Research Report which seeks to help girls, communities and plan to understand key issues that adolescent girls face was launched.

According to Mr. Okuta, the Board believed that allowing children and youth to participate and share their thoughts on issues that affect them could help build a safer society where they would be free from violence.

“We are also optimistic that the global economic melt-down should not be an excuse for any institutional failure to protect children, more opportunities should also be created for the youth to be entrepreneurs rather than being dependent on the Government work,” he said.

Nana Impraim IV Odikro of Ekumfie Eyisam who chaired the programme urged the participants to educate their family members on the need to educate children especially the girls.