The Ministry of Gender, Children, & Social Protection says it is putting in place measures to strengthen its child protection system to reduce cases of child labour in the country.
She said this at the celebration of ‘World Day against Child Labour’ on Thursday.
According to the Ministry, parents who force their wards into child labour will be sanctioned.
A consultant technical advisor to the Ministry at the department of children, Edmund Foley, in an interview with Citi News revealed that the Ministry’s primary policy document on child labour is the Children’s Act.
This act prohibits the involvement of children into child labor in the country and it states that “children are not permitted to work; they are only permitted to engage in what the act terms as ‘light work’.”
He admonished the general public to desist from introducing children to hazardous work because it is “a criminal offence.”
Mr. Foley stated the Ministry is working to ensure more children do not end up in child labour.
“The next step which the ministry is doing is trying to strengthen our entire child protection with the Child and Family Welfare policy which would seek to ensure that whilst you are sanctioning the parents, the child receives adequate care in the extended family, in the community and also with the support of state services from social welfare,” he ended.
The Children’s Act 1998 (Act 650) ensures that children in all the ten regions in nationwide are protected from any form of work that will hamper their growth and development.
By: Afua Kesewa Akoto/citifmonline.com/Ghana