Workshop to assess Children's Act underway

Accra, Sept. 5, GNA - The enactment of the Children's Act of 1998, Act 560, has helped to decentralize the responsibility of child care and protection of more children in Ghana, Mr Steven Adongo, Deputy Director, Department of Social Welfare said on Tuesday. He said the Act gives district assemblies the responsibility to protect the welfare of children as well as promoting their rights. This, he said, had given rise to children being more visible and vocal in public.

Speaking at a two-day workshop to assess the implementation of the Children's Act since its enactment some eight years ago, Mr Adongo explained that the implementation had made child rights issues a household concept through various sensitization programmes involving district assemblies and other mediums.

The workshop being hosted by the Ghana NGO Coalition on the Rights of the Child (GNCRC) together with the Centre for Community Development Initiatives (CCDI) is on the theme: "Implementation of the Children's Act in Ghana - A Turning Point?"

Mr Adongo, who spoke on the "Achievements, Opportunities and Challenges of the Act" indicated that Ghana, by establishing the Act, had achieved a lot since it signified a single document that embodied all legal issues involving children.

"The Act guarantees not only the rights and responsibilities of children, but also the responsibilities of parents and guardians and criminalizes parental irresponsibility. It makes the duty to maintain children a legal issue and not a moral one", he noted.

He said employers no longer employed children below 15 years, while child labour and night work by children had been outlawed. Ms Akua Ansah Eshon, Chairperson of the Coalition, said Ghana, being the first country to ratify the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), had further added another feather in her cap of laurels by making the Children's Act "a fine example of domestication of the Convention".

Ms. Eshon said there was therefore the need to carry out such assessment to know what "our collective efforts at protection of our children has yielded, to know whether it has yielded less children on the streets, less kaya yee (female porters), less abused children and reduced children without books at schools".

Ms. Dorothy Rozga, Country Representative of United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) lauded the government of Ghana for the progress it had made in the area of legal reforms in addition to the Children's Act and amendment of the Criminal Code to increase the age of criminal responsibility from seven to 12 years. She said UNICEF on its part would continue to partner with government, other UN bodies and civil society organizations for the respect, protection and fulfilment of children's rights.

Ms Rozga therefore charged the participants to identify the weak points in the enforcement chain of the Children's Act and develop concrete time bound interventions to strengthen them.

Mr. Zaya Yeebo, a Representative of CCDI, said the organization as part of its programmes to promote child rights issues, was setting up children's rights centres in Bolgatanga, Wa and Tamale in northern Ghana to serve as sensitization centres on child rights for the people in those areas.

He said provisions were being made by the organization to provide legal protection at no cost for children who suffered in the hands of others, explaining that they would be given lawyers to defend their rights in court.

Mrs. Levina Owusu, Principal Planning Officer, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, who represented the sector Minister said although the Local Government Act (Act 462) was not explicit on the rights of the child, it had incorporated all aspects of the law that dealt with the protection of the excluded and vulnerable, including children.

She said the spirit behind the Children's Act had therefore been brought to bear on the development of the policy and institutional direction of the country as well as the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).