Media urged to develop interest in child labour issues
A Programme Officer of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Accra, Mr. Kwame Mensah, has said ignorance on the part of the general public was the major reason affecting the fight against child labour in Ghana.
He said many people were ignorant or had limited understanding of the child labour phenomenon and its effect on children.
Mr Mensah was addressing the media at a day’s sensitization and training workshop jointly organised by the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) and ILO to build the media’s interest in child rights, child protection and child labour reporting in Sunyani.
It also aimed at educating participants not only on how to report on child labour issues by using the right terminologies but also overcoming the challenges involved that.
He expressed regret that there was limited knowledge about children’s rights in the country large sections of the population had poor attitudes towards the rights of children.
Mr Mensah said 215 million girls and boys globally were engaged in activities that disregard their human rights and therefore detrimental to their health, safety and morals.
He said in Ghana more than one million children were affected, adding that the negative effects of child labour went beyond the cycles of poverty, illiteracy and mediocre family community.
Mr Mensah said child labour in Ghana were found in agriculture, streetism, child domestic servitude, child trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.
He appealed to the media to be partners in the fight and elimination of worst forms of child labour in Ghana by moving from the coverage of events to educate the public on dangers of child labour.
Mr Mensah said many media practitioners in Ghana had no thorough understanding of child labour issues and were therefore unaware of the international, national and local legal frameworks, interventions, policies, programmes and existing projects addressing them.
“This lack of understanding of child labour and nature of interventions had made it difficult for the media to educate the public properly”, he said.
Mr Mensah said the general public was not sensitized enough to adequately support the fight against child labour because the knowledge gap hampered Journalists’ ability to effectively promote the effort of combating child labour.
Source: GNA