District Assemblies urged to seize uncensored films

Ho, July 13, GNA - Mr Edwin Gamadeku, Acting Volta Regional Director of the Department of Children of the Ministry of Women And Children's Affairs has appealed to Metropolitan, Municipal and District assemblies to establish task force to seize uncensored films freely circulating in the country.

He noted that most of those films reflected alien values such as occultism, which was fast spreading in schools in the country. Mr Gamadeku made the appeal at a debate organized by the Department between Mawuli School and OLA Secondary School in Ho on Wednesday to mark African Union (AU) Day of the African Child. The Day is also to commemorate the gruesome massacre of children in Soweto on June 16, 1976.

Mr Gamadeku called on the Cinematography Board to intensify its efforts in ensuring no film imported into the country by-passed its scrutiny.

He said there was the likelihood that surprise checks on students at all levels would reveal talismans and other relics, ostensibly for protection, stashed in their boxes or on their bodies. With 41 points, OLA Secondary speaking on the motion "Violence Against Children Is a Measure of Discipline" beat Mawuli School, who had 40 points.

The OLA team, led by Miss Ruby Tsorxe developed on the point that punishment, including corporal punishment, was an accepted corrective measure and could not be regarded as violence against children. On his part, Master Israel Ayikpa, Principal Speaker of Mawuli School countered that, all forms of physical assault on children constituted violence and unwarranted.

Mr Edwin Darkey, Volta Regional Director of the National Population Council said society must tackle problems of indiscipline, negative peer pressures, reproductive health issues, truancy which young people all over the world faced.

Commenting on the approaches to the debate, he observed that it was not factualness alone that mattered, but points and how the debaters developed their arguments as well as diction.