Volta region has highest child labourer incidents

Ho, June 24, GNA - With 32.2 per cent of child labour cases, Volta region ranks highest in the incidence of child labour in the country, most of them engaging mainly in fishing along the Volta Lake. The Western region is next with 27.1 per cent.

Ms Stella Ofori, Senior Labour Officer at the Labour Unit of the Ministry of Manpower and Social Welfare, said this when she delivered a paper on "The concept and variants of child labour in Ghana" at a sensitization workshop on child labour in Ho on Tuesday. It was organized by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) under the auspices of Education International, a global organization of teachers and other education workers, and funded by FNV Mondial, a coalition of Unions in the Netherlands.

Participants included teachers, parents, social workers, assembly members, pupils and students from first and second cycle schools. Ms. Ofori said over one million children engaged as child labourers in the country were less than 13 years of age.

She appealed to parents to sacrifice towards the upkeep of their children and refrain from "exchanging them for peanuts to be used as child labourers, as that would rather deepen the poverty in their families".

The participants identified poverty and child neglect in rural areas as the driving forces behind child labour and urged government to pay more attention to rural development in order to address the problem. They also suggested the formation of anti-child labour clubs in communities and schools to help fight the menace. Mr. Joseph Anderson, Head of Membership Education of GNAT in his closing remarks hoped the workshop had greatly equipped the participants to become agents of the fight against child labour in their communities and schools. 2