Legal Resources Centre champions rights of Ghanaian children
The Legal Resources Centre, a non-government organization, has engaged stakeholders on justice for children to solicit their input on issues affecting children in contact and in conflict with the law of the country.
The engagement sought to inform existing policies and national institutions such that they would be more transparent, accountable and work towards a more human rights-oriented justice for child policy.
The nationwide consultation programme, supported by European Union, was held under the theme: “Justice for Children: Bridging the Gap between Legislation and Practice”.
Mr Clarke Noyoru, the Project Coordinator for Legal Resources Centre, said the project interventions in areas of policy and legislation reforms would improve service delivery.
He said it would also ensure children in conflict and in contact with the law were adequately protected and their rights promoted.
Mr Noyoru said the extended family system plays an important role in the upbringing of children and there is the need for members to play their role in order to avoid child delinquencies in the society.
“Weak roles of families is responsible for a lot of delinquencies, there is progressive increase in the number of juvenile cases today, we have a lot of children committing crimes,” he said.
He expressed worry that there were no child friendly correctional facilities in the country and this has compelled authorities to place deviant children in adult cells.
The participants deliberated and made inputs into existing child justice legislation, policy and institutional frameworks as well as identified gaps and made proposed amendments to legislations on rights of children.
Mr Noyoru called on stakeholders in the child justice sector to build synergies and ensure continuous discourse that would promote enhanced children policy and relevant legislation.
He said there is the need to license social welfare officers so that they would provide professional services including probation and writing of social enquiry reports amongst others necessary in seeking justice for children.
Source: GNA