DAILY GRAPHIC, Saturday, January 7, 2012, pg.11.Ghana needs commitment to national policy on child labour

Children engaged in Child Labour

Article: Mary Ankrah

OVER the years, Ghana has been part of the global effort to ensure that the rights of children are not abused. In fact Ghana was the first country to ratify the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Furthermore, the country has gone beyond the mere ratification of the Convention to involve institutions such as the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the Attorney General’s Department and others that would facilitate the actualisation of child rights and development.

 Article 28 of the 1992 Constitution prohibits labour that is considered injurious to the health, education, or development of the child. Ghana has also signed three key international treaties that ban certain practices of child labour, including the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 182.

Additionally, Ghana has passed its own laws on child labour and these include the Children's Act of 1998 (Act 560) and the Labour Act of 2003 (Act 651) both of which address child labour in detail.

The Children's Act bans all exploitative labour and echoes the 1992 Constitution's prohibition by defining this type of labour as that which denies a child of health, education or development. The Act additionally bans a number of child labour practices listed as "hazardous".

Notwithstanding these laudable achievements, the practice of child labour in their worst forms still persists in the country.

Child work begins to be described as child labour, when the work is likely to interfere with the child’s education, health, physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development; or expose the child to an environment not conducive to his/her development.

The causes of child labour are numerous and poverty is one major factor responsible for the prevalence of child labour in the country. About 55 per cent of the populations live below the poverty line. Therefore, poor households badly need the money that their children earn, since they spend the bulk of their income on food.

Secondly, poor parents fail to appreciate the long-term value of education, and instead opt for the short-term economic gains of child labour. They consider their children’s employment in certain occupations such as farming, carpentry or fishing as an opportunity to learn employable skills. To them, it is an alternative education with much more practical value than formal education.

According to Madam Elizabeth Akanbombire, Head of the Child Labour Unit of the Labour Department, children in Ghana aged between five to 17 are engaged in activities such as domestic work, farming, fishing, street hawking, quarrying, sand winning, animal rearing, prostitution, as porters (“kayayei”), bus conductors and truck pushers. Despite the ban on child labour, the canker continues to persist among the new generation of Ghanaians.

She indicated that the ILO Global Labour Report (2008) showed that the rate of decline in the number of children in child labour has slowed down over the years, with 215 million children in child labour and 115.31 million in hazardous work registering three per cent decline as against 10 per cent in 2004.

Moreover, the Ghana Child Labour Survey (GCLS 2003) conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in 2001 within the framework of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) indicated that out of the estimated number of 6,361,111 working children in Ghana aged between five and 17, 2.474,545 (39 per cent) engaged in economic activities.

Meanwhile 1,273,294 (20 per cent ) were engaged in child labour and 242,074 (3.8 per cent) were engaged in activities classified as hazardous work such as head portage, child domestic work, commercial or ritual servitude, small-scale mining and quarrying, fishing, commercial agriculture, and commercial sex.

Also, the survey revealed that 57 per cent of these children were in the agricultural sector, 21 per cent account for hawkers, 11 per cent for general labour and 11 per cent for other labour.

The report showed that over 95 per cent of these children did not use protective wears, exposing them to health problems, and 88 per cent were unpaid family workers and apprentices.

However, the Volta Region (33.2 per cent) recorded the highest proportion of child labour, while the Brong Ahafo Region (11.6 per cent ) recorded the least. Western recorded 27.1 per cent, Eastern, 25.4 per cent; Northern, 24.2 per cent; Upper East, 19.1 per cent; Central, 17.1 per cent; Ashanti, 14.8 per cent; Greater Accra, 13.9 per cent, and Upper West, 13.1 per cent.

Thousands of these children live and work on the streets, and their numbers keep increasing. They are often seen selling at the bus stops, under the traffic lights when there is traffic congestion or in chop bars washing plates or carrying loads at the market places as porters, among others.


There is nothing wrong, however in engaging children in work considered to be socially necessary as they acquire basic knowledge, skills, and a sense of responsibility, which could be beneficial to them in future. But work is perceived as harmful when it does endanger the child’s physical, mental, or moral health and development.

There is therefore the need to employ child labour inspectors who will frequently go on the streets, bus stops and places where under-age children could be found selling or engaging in child labour activities. These children should be supported and withdrawn from such practices.

It is recognised that most poor families engaged children in child labour due to lack of understanding and appreciation of the issue. Therefore, private organisations, stakeholders, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the media should aid in promoting informational programmes to create awareness about child labour and child rights in the districts and communities where child labour is intensive.

In the absence of a firm policy implementation by the government, backed by resources and translated into effective action, the best efforts of other partners in the fight against child labour are not likely to make any impact. Therefore, a national policy commitment is key to effectively reducing child labour in Ghana. The government should establish, implement and monitor policies on child labour in the country.

Also, those who fall foul of the law on child labour should be given severe punishments that will severe as deterrents to others. The government should also make the prosecution of violators a priority and the public should help report child labour cases. By so doing, the older generation would be confident to leave this country in the hands of our future generation.