Parents advised against exposing children to child labour

Koforidua, April 15, GNA - A Human Rights activist has called on teachers to advise parents to desist from engaging their children in strenuous labour that could impair their health, education and morality. Mr Frank Doyi made the call when speaking on Human Rights education methodologies at a one-day workshop for teachers in Koforidua on Wednesday, organized by the Ghanaian Section of the Amnesty International (AI).

The workshop was one of a series being organized for teachers in 10 West African countries by the AI, under its West Africa Human Rights Education Project with sponsorship from the European Union. Mr Doyi urged the 26 participants drawn from basic schools in the Anglican and SDA Education Units in the Koforidua municipality to be interested in the physical appearance and academic performance of their pupils to identify any tendencies of "dangerous child labour" from their parents for the appropriate intervention and redress. The Project Co-ordinator, Mr Fred Kpoor said the workshop was the second phase of the project to develop the capacity of teachers to include the teaching of human rights in core subjects of the educational curriculum.

According to him, if teachers were knowledgeable in human rights education, they would be able to impart it to their pupils and through them to affect their communities towards forming a human rights awareness culture in the affected countries. Mr Kpoor said the participants would also be introduced to human rights standards and protocols, including the UN Convention on the Rights of Child, the Convention against torture, the 1992 Ghana Constitution and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the child.