Journalists urged to bring out issues of child labour
Journalists have been urged to exhibit high level of commitment in bringing out issues relating to child labour to help save innocent children.
“Though Ghana had been commended as being among the nations leading the way in the elimination of child labour in the world, our efforts are still not enough to enable us attain the global target of total elimination of the worst forms of child labour by 2016,” Mr Bright Blewu General-Secretary of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) made the call at a day’s consultative meeting on child labour in Accra.
The meeting was organized by the GJA in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to enhance the capacity of the media, in child labour advocacy.
Mr Blewu noted that children were being exposed to all forms of hazardous work and there was the need for the media to perform their watchdog role to end the worst forms of child labor across in the country, “so our younger ones can develop and realize their full potential in society”.
He called on other stakeholders to intensify the crusade against child labour by offering better protection for the rights of children.
Mrs Elizabeth Akanbombire, Head of Child Labour Unit of ILO, Ghana, who took journalists through the concepts, incidence and child labour interventions in Ghana, said the children were in the labour work due to economic, socio-cultural, inadequacies in education system and weak institutional capacities.
“We still have children in the fishing, mining and cocoa growing communities involved in the practice and the nation’s efforts in this regard had been hampered by lack of coordination among key stakeholders.
“Even though a solid legal framework is in place and a National Plan of Action (NPA), have been adopted to deal with the worst forms of child labour”, she added.
Mr Francis Kokutse Consultant for the project said the meeting was to ensure improvement in the quality and frequency of public sensitization and awareness on child labour issues and how the media could help in its eradication of it in Ghana.
He called for the implementation of social intervention programmes such as the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) to be speeded up in all areas where poverty is endemic to alleviate the plight of households that are unable to offer full protection to their children.
Panelists Mawusi Afele, Acting General Manager of the Ghana News Agency, James Azamesu and Miss Efam Awo Dovi all media experts took journalists through how to get credible information, effective writing for print and radio and how to increase public interest in child labour issues.
Source: GNA