Ghana marks world day against child labour

The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) on Tuesday championed Ghana’s commemoration of World Day Against Child Labour with a call for an end to the practice of exposing children to hazardous work.

“As the world marks the International Day Against Child Labour today Tuesday June 12, it is important to highlight the urgent need to eliminate the worst forms of child labor across the world to enable children develop and realize their full potential in society.

“CHRAJ calls on parents, to be interested in the welfare and education of their children to complement efforts of government,” Ms Lauretta Vivian Lamptey, CHRAJ Commissioner stated in a statement issued to mark the day copied to Ghana News Agency in Accra

The Commission called on other stakeholders to intensify the crusade against child labor by offering better protection for the rights of children especially in Ghana.

The celebration, launched in 2002 by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), provides an opportunity for governments and other stakeholders to give further support to the campaign against child labour.

This year's celebration on the theme: “Human Rights and Social Justice... Let’s End Child Labour,” seeks to highlight that child labour does not only constitute a violation of the rights of the victims, but put their future into jeopardy and undermines national development.

In addition, the Commission said it deprived children of their right to free education and impeded their ability to acquire the forms of training for decent living in future.

The statement noted that Ghana had been commended as being among the nations leading the way in the elimination of child labour in the world, however, “Our efforts are still a far cry from attaining the global target of total elimination of the worst forms of child labour by 2016.

“We still have children in the fishing, mining and cocoa growing communities involved in the practice”.

It noted that the nation’s efforts in this regard had been hampered by lack of coordination among key stakeholders, even though a solid legal framework was in place and a National Plan of Action (NPA) had been adopted to deal with the worst forms of child labour.

The Commission therefore, urged all stakeholders to redouble their efforts to quicken the pace of implementation of the NPA, “As it is important that we take steps to monitor and review the effectiveness of NPA in dealing with the worst forms of child labour to ensure rapid progress in protecting the rights of children”.

It urged government to step up its social intervention programmes, such as the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), in all areas where poverty was found to be endemic to alleviate the plight of households that were unable to offer full protection to their children.**