Ghana urged to stamp out child labour

Sunyani (B/A), Sept 13, GNA - Ghana's cocoa industry would suffer a major setback on the international market if immediate steps are not taken to check the use of child labour in cocoa growing areas. Madam Patience Dapaah, programme officer for the National Programme for the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour, explained at a one-day workshop in Sunyani that some major cocoa trading partners had threatened to stop purchasing Ghana's cocoa because a research had revealed that children of school-going age were used on most of the farms.

The workshop was organized by the national programme under the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment for heads of department, Assembly members and opinion leaders drawn from the Sunyani municipality.

Madam Dapaah disclosed that one of the country's western partners had already stopped purchasing her cocoa, adding, the July 1 cocoa certification 'Harkin-Angel protocol', signed in 2001 that gave the nation up to 2005 to stop the practice had to be extended to July 2008 due to Ghana's efforts through West Africa Cocoa Agriculture Programme (WACAP) to help eliminate the practice.

She said the workshop was to sensitise participants who would in turn pass on the information to the various communities to eliminate all worst forms of child labour, especially in the cocoa sector. The programme officer said a major objective of the workshop was to explore ideas to factor into the Child Rights Act as a form of defence, since children at certain ages could perform light work on cocoa farms to assist their parents.

She called on the government to strengthen the police and the immigration services to enable them to perform their duties well in handling foreigners into the country.

Madam Stella Ofori, a resource person, who gave an overview of the child labour situation in Ghana, noted that some parents exposed their children to hazardous work out of ignorance, poverty and illiteracy and urged the participants to keep surveillance on children.