The former Minister of Women and Children Affairs, Hajia Alima Mahama has said the lack of resources should not be an excuse for the Department of Social Welfare not to strictly monitor orphanages across the country.
She acknowledged that the Gender Ministry is poorly resourced which affects the operations of the Department of Social Welfare but according to her, there are many other means to acquire funds for their work.
[contextly_sidebar id=”cmAE9NU1J7S2U6vhrX7opoa2GIN2O4Rz”]“We all know that the Social Welfare Department now under the Gender Ministry is under resourced but for me, it’s a question of priority because whether we like it or not, the Ministry of Gender gets some money
and they also interact with donors and they are able to raise resources to undertake certain activities,” she remarked.
Investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas in his recent undercover investigations shed light on the inhumane treatment being meted out to some orphaned children in an orphanage in at Awutu Bawjiase in the Central Region.
The over 100 children at the Countryside Children’s Welfare Home are forced to fast, even in the midst of plenty.
Anas Aremeyaw Anas, and his team lived in the home for six months, uncovered a home that has been turned into a business venture by its founder, Mrs Emma Boafo Yeboah, affectionately referred to as Auntie Emma or Mummy in the home.
At the home, the children are made to pose for photo opportunities to receive items from donors, only to be starved behind the walls of the orphanage.
On the back of this, the Gender Ministry is set to organize a press briefing on Tuesday to respond to the issue.
But on Eyewitness News, Hajia Alima Mahama asked, “yes, there will be a press conference to say A, B, C, D but are we going to wait for another investigation before we take action?”
“This thing has been going on, it’s being reported, investigations happen and then we don’t hear anything about it,” she fumed.
According to her, the institutions with the policy mandate of monitoring and regulating such orphanages have to take immediate action.
She also recommended that monitoring of orphanages should be a priority and “money should be put in…the little that we get, we need to use it to implement our programmes. It is our children that we are talking about!”
The former Minister admitted that in society, there will always be people who will exploit others “but the institutions with the mandate to do it have to be proactive and complaining about resources should not be the excuse.”
“This is really, really sad and it’s unfortunate. No one is obliged to establish an orphanage so if you go out there as a citizen of Ghana to say you want to establish an orphanage,” she added.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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