Stop violence against children – Minister

Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection (MOGCSP), Mrs Cynthia Morrison has renewed a call for an end to all forms of violence against children.

In a speech read on her behalf by the chief director of the ministry, Dr Hafisa Zackaria, at the launch of an advocacy campaign dubbed ‘Stop Violence against Children’, the Minister reiterated Ghana’s position on promoting and ensuring the protection of children at all levels.

The call comes on the back of a study conducted by the Ministry and OAfrica, a non-governmental organisation, which revealed that in spite of the various social intervention by government to increase enrolment, participation and retention of children in school, some children were still dropping out of school.

According to the children sampled, corporal punishment still prevailed in most schools, in spite of the tough stance taken by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to ban it from schools.

The research also found that some children experienced violence at home, with 50.8% corrected through caning and whipping, and 7.7% through physical punishment with bare hands.

Overwhelmingly, children experienced violence at school, with a little over 80% of the children reporting that the corrective method used was the cane.

According to Mrs Morrison, despite Ghana’s achievement at ratifying the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which provides for the welfare of children and to protect them from all forms of abuse and exploitation, some children continued to suffer abuse in parts of the country, with persistent economic exploitation and physical harm.

The minister called on all stakeholders to intensify efforts to end all forms of child abuse and also find suitable strategies for addressing children’s needs at the national, regional, local and household levels.

For his part, Public Relations Officer for OAfrica, Mr Platini Ashiagbor said the campaign had been designed to show the full horror of violence against children, in the hope that it will raise the necessary awareness to create a new culture of parenting.

He added that he was of the hope that the campaign will bring forth a new generation of Ghanaians whose self-confidence will come from within, because they have grown up in families that raised them up instead of beating them down.

The campaign, which is a joint programme of the MOGCSP, OAfrica and the EU, seeks to draw public attention to suppress all actions that perpetuate violence against children at the home, school, workplace, justice and welfare institutions, and community settings, as well as reduce the acceptance of social practices that have negative consequences on children by creating a critical mass of people to promote the adoption of behaviours favourable to the protection of children.