Volta region has highest child labourer incidents in
Ghana- Labour Unit
Ho, June 24, Ghanadot/GNA – With
32.2 per cent of child labour cases, Volta region ranks
highest in the incidence of child labour in the country,
most of them engaging mainly in fishing along the Volta
Lake.
The Western region is next with 27.1 per cent.
Ms Stella Ofori, Senior Labour Officer at the Labour Unit of
the Ministry of Manpower and Social Welfare, said this when
she delivered a paper on “The concept and variants of child
labour in Ghana” at a sensitization workshop on child labour
in Ho on Tuesday.
It was organized by the Ghana National Association of
Teachers (GNAT) under the auspices of Education
International, a global organization of teachers and other
education workers, and funded by FNV Mondial, a coalition of
Unions in the Netherlands.
Participants included teachers, parents, social workers,
assembly members, pupils and students from first and second
cycle schools.
Ms. Ofori said over one million children engaged as child
labourers in the country were less than 13 years of age.
She appealed to parents to sacrifice towards the upkeep of
their children and refrain from “exchanging them for peanuts
to be used as child labourers, as that would rather deepen
the poverty in their families”.
The participants identified poverty and child neglect in
rural areas as the driving forces behind child labour and
urged government to pay more attention to rural development
in order to address the problem.
They also suggested the formation of anti-child labour clubs
in communities and schools to help fight the menace.
Mr. Joseph Anderson, Head of Membership Education of GNAT in
his closing remarks hoped the workshop had greatly equipped
the participants to become agents of the fight against child
labour in their communities and schools.
GNA
