Hon. Ignatius Baffour Awuah, the sector minister responsible for the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations has called on the international community to visit the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations for any information required on efforts in eliminating child labour.
He said Ghana is working assiduously to eliminate Child labour in the country to give total development of its young children by making sure that every child has access to quality education and also what preventing in any way from accessing quality education.
“Let me take this opportunity to say that we want to let the International Community know that if they want information as to what our efforts are towards eliminating child labour in Ghana, they should feel free to come to us.
We have all the information they require. What we do not want is the Supreme position of foreign cultures on us maybe marking us by cultures of different countries that we think may not be right. Yes!, it is for this reason that is why we are developing homegrown activities which take into consideration our cultural heritage”.
He said this during the 4th meeting of the National Steering Committee on child labour. This meeting was aimed at getting an update on what various committees have done in the fight against child labour. The hazardous Activity Framework (HAF) was one of the most important topics discussed during the meeting.
According to the minister, “most of our child labour issues which I’m made pervasive in almost every sphere of our national life the most is the one which has of last that received much International attention is children involved in the production of cocoa”, he said.
Consequently, several studies have been made; we have had calls to sometimes challenge the findings of some of these studies that have been made. It is all because of the interpretation we have given to things within our legislature.
Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah is of the view that, when the hazardous activities framework is passed, will do away with all misunderstanding and will begin to have a common understanding which will also do away with debate as to whether this work was done well or not.
Noting that, his outfit remains committed to working to get our children out of the street, out of hard work so that they will dedicate all their energy to studying so and acquiring knowledge in the country.
“So as part of our mandate, our role is to make sure that we work to get children out of work, especially children who are under 13 years and those who are between 13 and 15 years, even if they have to do work, they have to do what we call guarded work and for those who are from 15 to 18 if they have to work, they will work under supervision that they are not exposed to any form of hazards.
So all along, all we have been trying to do as a ministry with our partners is to work together to develop a harmonised hazardous activities framework which we had support from our partners”.
He explained that sensitization on child labour must go down to ordinary Ghanaians in the village to understand the reality on the ground.
“To our partners today you have been taken through what we have done and we believe that together with you, we will be able to bring this to the Ghanaians, especially those in the countryside, sensitized them from what has been done, also to get they buying into it because that is the keyword. We have to get their buy-in because if we sit here and do all the laws without getting them involved our efforts will yield nothing”.
The hazardous activity framework was developed with support from the Trade For Decent Work Project.
