Don’t deny ex-convicts employment - Seventh-Day Adventist Church

The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is urging the public to desist from vilifying and stigmatizing convicts when they return home after serving their sentences.

It rather urges, especially, relatives of people who have fallen foul with the law to accept and re-integrate them into the family unit to enable them contribute their quota to national development.

Communications Director for the South-Central Ghana Conference, Pastor Francis Tuffour, is unhappy about incidence of denying ex-convicts job opportunities.

He says such practice defeats the mandate of the prisons as correctional center, and also promotes insecurity in the country.

The SDA Church believes it has a responsibility to cater for the needs of vulnerable in society, especially inmates.

Through its Prison Christian Ministry, the church has been assisting over 1800 inmates at the Kumasi Central Prisons by sharing the word of God, donations and personal visits.

As part of its Open Air Evangelism, the conference held one of its worship sessions with the inmates this week, after which officials donated food, sanitary items totaling thousand Ghana cedis.

The church also donated one thousand Ghana cedis cash.

Francis Tuffuor, says the church is appalled by the tendency for Ghanaians to denigrate prisoners on their release after serving their jail term.

He wants the stigmatization stopped and more steps taken to re-integrate such people into society.