WORLD DAY AGAINST CHILD LABOUR HELD AT TONGO (PAGE 35)

This year’s International World Day Against Child Labour has been observed with a call on all stakeholders to join forces in the fight towards the liberation of the Ghanaian child from child labour.
The Deputy Upper East Regional Minister, Mrs Agnes Asangalisa Chigabatia, who made the call, said the issue of child labour continued to draw the nation backwards.
Mrs Chigabatia, who was speaking at the national celebration of the day at Tongo in the Talensi-Nabdam District of the Upper East Region, stressed the need for people to focus their attention on educating the children to eradicate the problem.
The theme for the celebration was: “Education - The right response to child labour.”
According to the deputy regional minister, the latest data available, indicated that in the Upper East Region, majority of children between the ages of five and 17 were child labourers with young girls being the worst affected.
“In the Upper East Region, it is common to see children engage in domestic work, commercial agriculture, fishing, mining, stone quarrying, among others, to the detriment of their education,” she said.
Mrs Chigabatia called on chiefs, opinion leaders and well-meaning people to espouse education as the tool to reduce the problem of child labour in the region in particular and Ghana in general.
She said the introduction of the Capitation Grant, the School Feeding Programme and the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) should serve as an encouragement to parents to send their wards to school.

The Deputy Minister for Manpower, Youth and Employment, Madam Akosua Frema-Opare, said in order to deal with the worst forms of child labour, child labour issues had been mainstreamed into the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy II and the guidelines of the Medium Term Development Plans of ministries and departments.
She stressed the need for stakeholders to join forces and increase their commitment in making education accessible to all children of school age.
The Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Sports, Mrs Angelina Baiden Amissah, said children were precious assets who must be treated with dignity, adding “the slave trade now belongs to history.”
She announced that a three-classroom block would be constructed and furnished for the small scale mining sites in the Talensi-Nabdam District as the right response to end child labour in those communities.
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Talensi-Nabdam, Mr Anaba K. Nabila, said the assembly, in partnership with Afrikids, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), had been able to rescue and prevent about 450 children from entering into worst forms of child labour such as small scale mining in the district.
The Head of Core Projects, Afrikids Ghana, Mr Cletus Anaaya, the implementing agency in the Talensi-Nabdam District, said 150 children had so far been withdrawn by his outfit from the small scale mining centres in the district out of which 119 had been enrolled in school while the remaining 31 were undertaking various vocational training courses.
Mr Anaaya added that all the 150 children had been registered with the NHIS while their families had also been supported with food aid and flood relief items.
Ms Millicent Dagben, one of the rescued children, appealed to the Talensi-Nabdam District Assembly, Afrikids and the Ghana Education Service to make good their promise to construct, furnish and staff a public school to serve the educational needs of the mining communities in the district.
Individuals and organisations who had contributed to child labour issues over the years were awarded certificates.
They included Ms Stella Abudu and Kingsley Obeng Kyere of GBC, the Ghana Journalists Association, New Times Corporation, Afrikids, the Kassena Nankana District Assembly, ICOUR, ILO's international programme on the elimination of child labour (IPEC) and UNICEF.