Child labour cripples children's

Published in the Daily Graphic on 15/04/2010, pg 11

Article: Matilda Attram
Child labour continues to pose problems that result in child abuse and hinder the growth and development of children. Child labour seriously undermines efforts to provide children the necessary knowledge and skills to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The Children’s Act, 1998 (ACT 560), defines a child as a person below 18 years. A child is said to be a victim of child labour when he or she engaged in hazardous work that is injurious to his/her health, and deprived him or her of education and development.
Section 89 of the Act states that the minimum age for a child to be employed shall be 15, while section 91 states that the minimum age of a person in hazardous tasks which may include going to sea, mining and quarrying, carrying heavy loads, farming, working with manufacturing industries where chemicals are produced or used, is 18.
The Act further regarded places where machines are used and others such as drinking bars, hotels and places of entertainment where an individual would be exposed to immoral behaviours, as unsuitable for children to work.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also defines child labour as “work that exceeds a minimum number of hours depending on the age of child and on the type of work which is considered as harmful to the child”.
According to the 2001 UNICEF report, an estimated 250 million children work under hazardous conditions in developing countries.
Hundreds of children are found hawking on the streets of Accra and other major cities in the country. Some are also found engaged in stone quarrying, others are used as farm hands, others engaged in the sale of iced water and “iced kenkey” among other items on the streets of major cities in the country, risking their lives to generate income, while others assist the elderly and physically impaired in begging for alms. Some of these children even lose their lives as a result of working in extremely dangerous environments.
Child labour continues to pose increasing concern among nations, especially developing ones such as Ghana. Information from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) indicated that there was an increase in child labour cases involving children between the ages of five and 17 in the country in 2001.
The report presented an estimated population of over 1,031,220 children under age 13 to be involved in child labour. Two hundred and forty-two thousand and seventy-four (242,074) children engaged in hazardous child labour and 2,474,545 representing 39 per cent out of 6,361,111 children in Ghana were engaged in economic activities, according to the GSS.
A report by the United Nation Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) also indicated that, based on a study conducted by the Tulane University in 2008, an estimated number of 1.6 million children are engaged in child labour in Ghana.
The report explained that these children work under hazardous conditions,such as carrying heavy loads, spraying pesticides, using machetes to clear undergrowth and burning vegetation.
The editorial column of the Daily Graphic February 9, 2009, issue concern about reports of children in the Eastern Region spotted to be engaged in ferrying tourists in canoes without any safety equipment.
Over the past few years, Initiatives, structures and mechanisms aimed at identifying and solving the problem were set up to improve upon children’s rights and welfare. Governments, as well as agencies and societal organisations including private ones have all joined the cause to curb this menace.
In connection with this, the ‘International Year of the Child’ was declared and accepted in 1979 by the United Nations (UN) with UNICEF creating the awareness on problems facing children in the world, and the measures to solve them.
Article 32 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates “The right of the child must be recognised by the state, protected from economic exploitation and any work that is likely to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development”.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted to ensure that member countries protected the rights of the child and Ghana was the first country among other sovereign nations to ratify the convention as a sign of the country’s commitment to protect working children from exploitation and hazardous conditions.
Again, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1999 launched a major global programme by instituting the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), with a request to individuals and agencies that provide advisory services, to focus on child abuse. The establishment of the Ghana National Commission on Children (GNCC) under the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC) in 2001 was also to oversee the welfare and development of children, and to co-ordinate services which would aim at promoting the rights of the child.
Other programmes to improve on the welfare of children in the country include issues discussed on child labour under the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy for 2006 through 2009 (GPRS II), indicating that priority will be given to special programmes to combat the worst forms of child labour under which the government is implementing the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty which introduces a cash transfer programme to support families to fight against child labour.
Also, the Government's National Policy Guidelines on Orphans and Other Children Made Vulnerable by HIV AIDS and the implementation of the National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Child Labour, as well as other projects, are being implemented with support to the National Plan of Action in Ghana.
These demonstrate the commitment governments (past and current) and civil society organisations, NGOs, religious organisations and other social clubs, have attached to solving child labour.
The worst forms of child labour activities are predominant in rural areas, as compared to urban areas. Such activities of child labour manifests not only in street hawking but also in most rural areas, where most parents do not value education.
UNICEF is therefore, emphatic on the problem of child labour and describes it as “ a prison that withers both capabilities and potentials of children" and the problem has been attributed to many factors in our own society. Mention could be made of poverty, single parenting and sheer ignorance. The increasing cases of school dropouts, broken homes, peer pressure, unplanned families, gender roles, rural-urban migration and outmoded cultural practices, all contribute to the practice of child labour in our country.
A report by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) on a study conducted with regards to the problem of child labour in communities across the country in 2008, observed that some rural dwellers regarded child labour as part of a training programme for children. Parents of child labour victims may think of only the economic benefits gained, but the problem does cause more harm than good to the family and society.
We are grateful to the government and all other organisation for their efforts in addressing the problem. There is however, the need to intensify measures including sensitisation programmes such as durbars involving community leaders, drama, movies and house-to-house campaigns on the need to stop child labour.
Also, there is the need for effective implementation of the policies on the rights of the child, which would go a long way in arresting the situation. Therefore, those who persist in breaking the law should be made to suffer the penalty.This will deter others from doing same.
Another issue is the need to enhance the implementation of effective family planning measures to ensure that couples give birth to children they can adequately cater for.To succeed in the fight against child labour in Ghana, attitudes must change and this could be achieved through major forms of inter-personal communication, where interactions and participation are encouraged.