Compassion International Ghana has launched an electronic platform dubbed 'the resolver' to reduce child labour and abuses in the Kwahu Affram plains districts.
The platform will allow every well-meaning citizen to report cases of abuse to authorities for redress.
Kwahu Affram plains is among the biggest farming districts where the country draws its major food supply in the eastern region.
Residents are predominantly farmers who engage in fish, cash, and food crops farming.
Behind this large farming that produces the ball of banku and fried fish on our dining tables are children as young as seven who are used as laborers.
These children are either coerced or sold into harsh conditions against their will to make money and daily bread for their perpetrators.
At the launch of the child protection program that offers avenues to report issues of abuses, the Kwahu Afram plains north deputy director of education, Dora Tempoah, explained the extent of destruction and damage caused to the education of these children as dire.
Dora Tempoah who stood in for the district education director reveals that schools on the islands, where child labour dominates, record low-class attendance.
According to her, instructional hours are lost as classes mostly start late than the usual time of 8:00 am.
"Students attend school after they had returned from their fishing activities. This gravely affects the performance of the students in our area and it's really a worry to the directorate and the parents," she explained.
She stated that the increasing level of sexual abuse and early marriages which school-going girls go through in the district has also become a canker.
" Girls as young as twelve are impregnated and married out to older men. The men turn to abuse them sexually and use them for other manual responsibilities," she said.
The director in an interview reveals how the directorate’s swift actions and intervention halted a child marriage ceremony that happened recently in the district.
On their part, the Social Welfare Department warned adults to desist from abusing children which was in the ascendancy in the district.
The Director of the department, Kofi Appiah, maintains that the department is doing everything possible within its means to reduce abuses but a lack of logistics is hampering its operations.
He says the lack of marine police makes it difficult to reach the islands where most of the cases of child labour and abuses are on the rise.
According to the partnership facilitator of compassion international Ghana in the area, Philip Appiah Yamoah, the resolver will provide avenues for cases to be reported which will then be handed over to the social welfare department.
The organisation, as part of its program constructed and handed over a twelve-seater toilet facility with washrooms to the people of adeemmra to reduce open defecation in the community.
Latest Stories
-
Gold Fields Ghana Foundation challenges graduates to maximise benefits of community apprenticeship programme
1 hour -
GBC accuses Deputy Information Minister Sylvester Tetteh of demolishing its bungalow illegally
1 hour -
Boost for education as government commissions 80 projects
2 hours -
NAPO commissions library to honour Atta-Mills’ memory
2 hours -
OmniBSIC Bank champions health and wellness with thriving community walk
2 hours -
Kora Wearables unveils Neo: The Ultimate Smartwatch for Ghana’s tech-savvy and health-conscious users
2 hours -
NDC supports Dampare’s ‘no guns at polling stations’ directive
2 hours -
Police officer interdicted after video of assault goes viral
2 hours -
KNUST’s Prof. Reginald Annan named first African recipient of World Cancer Research Fund
2 hours -
George Twum-Barimah-Adu pledges inclusive cabinet with Minority and Majority leaders
3 hours -
Labourer jailed 5 years for inflicting cutlass wounds on businessman
3 hours -
Parliament urged to fast-track passage of Road Traffic Amendment Bill
3 hours -
Mr Daniel Kofi Asante aka Electrician
3 hours -
Minerals Commission, Solidaridad unveils forum to tackle child labour in mining sector
3 hours -
Election 2024: Engagement with security services productive – NDC
3 hours