91% of children in the Upper West region are said to be victim of physical violence both at school and their home environments.
Most of the victim are abused by adults, the youth and by their peers.
This was disclosed by Mr. Salifu Yussif Kanton, executive director of Community Development Alliance( CDA), a non-governmental organization in the Upper West region at Lambusie during a stakeholders forum on ” access to juvenile justice and child protection”.
The executive director who was briefing stakeholders on a research conducted by his outfit ahead of the launch of a project against child physical violence disclosed that most people in the Upper West region are unwilling to report issues of physical violence to the law enforcement agencies because of the culture of togetherness known at the local palace as “tijaabunyeni”.
He lamented that “there are cases where four-year-old children are cruelly defiled by 55-year-old men in communities around us and yet the people are not willing to surrender these perpetrators to face justice all because we say we are all one”.
Mr. Kanton said the CDA project will operate in the Wa municipality and the Lambusie Karni District to support families, District Assemblies, as well as community leaders to work together to establish home and community environments that protect children.
It will run until January 2015 and also work to improve child protection systems and practices that safeguard the human rights and wellbeing of children in the targeted districts.
Records available indicate that the lambusie Karni where child physical violence is said to be on the rise, continue to record mass failure in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The district recorded 77.9% failure in the 2013 BECE as compared to 74% failure recorded in 2012.Out of 528 candidates who sat for the BECE last year, 417 of them representing, 77.9% failed with females constituting 96% of the failure.
The paramount chief of the Lambusie traditional area, Kuoro Salifu Di-yaka expressed worry over the increasing reports of child physical violence in the area.
He said the Lambusie traditional council is considering the enactment of stringent by-laws to help curb the trend saying, “these are worrying moments for us as a people. We can’t continue to look helpless while our children go through these abuses”.
The chief recommended mass sensitization of the people by the National Commission for Civic Education and called on the law enforcement agencies to strengthen their activities in the area
By: Latif Mahama/citifmonline.com/Ghana