Life they say is “how you make it”, but for a child what then is life? Life can sometimes be very unfair to a child since he or she has no choice in determining who will be his or her parents. Millions of children are born in classes of society, however, whether a child is born into a rich home or a poor home, he is entitled to life. And no one has the right to fizzle that life out of it. The good old book (The Bible) makes it very clear that children are gifts from the Lord. In it, instances are sighted where efforts were made by the parents to preserve the lives of their children from tyrants. It shows how the life of baby Moses was preserved by the parents from the wicked King Pharaoh of Egypt. Moses later in life became the savior of Israel; however, many of his male infant contemporaries in Egypt were slewed at the command of King Pharaoh. Another damning example was by Herod: “Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not” (Matthew 2:16, 18). Cruel Herod in an attempt to secure his throne from the hand of a future king of the Jews ended up destroying the lives of several innocent Israelites children. But the parents of baby Jesus escaped with him to Africa, and he grew to become the savior of mankind. This is what is expected of all parents: doing their best for the well being of their children. For us today, we are fortunate to be practicing democracy where every life is protected under the constitution. In fact, Ghana was the first country to ratify the United Nations Convention on Child Rights. According to article 7:1 of the convention: “the child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents”. Despite the fact that Ghana is a signatory to the UN convention on child rights, the rights of many Ghanaian children are being abuse on daily bases with impunity by adults include their very parents and this sometimes many be attributed to our socio-economic and cultural situations, with some being forced to work and sleep under dehumanizing conditions. Indeed, in recent times the rate at which some children in Ghana are being slain by people who to me are by far worse than the Pharaohs and the Herods of the bible time is very alarming. Yes, the very parents who have given birth to them have turned against them and denying them their fundamental human right: “Life”. My heart bleeds whenever I hear such news in the airwaves. Although some of our children were lost through accidents but this could have being avoided if extra care and caution was taken by parents and property owners to keep them away from such deadly traps such as vehicles and septic tanks. News stories concerning the death of many children in Ghana within this year 2012 are very horrifying to hear, with accompanying gory pictures to behold. Taking you down the memory lane: on the night of March 31, 2012, at Glefe a surburb of Dasoman in Accra, a three week old child was butchered by her mother. She, allegedly cut the legs and the hands, wrapped the trunk in a polythene bag and later threw it at a refuse dump. April 22, 2012, a 10-year-old boy was sent to his untimely grave by a 40-year old fisherman leaving four others with various degrees of injuries when he threw an improvised explosive device at them for disturbing his siesta, at Moree, near Cape Coast. March 24, 2012 a 29-year-old man cut up his two little children, aged seven and three years, with a machete at Kronum Kwapra, a Kumasi suburb, leaving one dead. After which he went into hiding but has since being apprehended and put before court. May 03, 2012, at Sepe Timpom, a suburb of Kumasi, a young man believed to be in his mid-twenties, allegedly killed his two children and stabbed his pregnant wife unconscious. Who later died at the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi. Television pictures of the crime scene was very horrifying. The young man is still on the wanted list of the police. All these, just to mention but a few, leave us with shocking and damning pains which vibrates deep down into our span. If parents who are the first protectors of the child, turn against it, then where will the child turn to? Can we attribute these murders of innocent children by no other persons but their very parents to mental problems on the part of such parents or socio-economic problems such as unemployment? Our society is gradually degenerating, and this calls for unanimous efforts by all stakeholders to help stop this social canker. The Department of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, the mass media and other organizations must dramatize home the need to preserve the life of all children and that nobody has the right to take another person’s life. Parents should be made aware that it is not a crime to handover your own biological children to the Department of Social Welfare if one cannot afford to cater for them. Spouses should be educated on the need to report to the police any threat from their counter on their lives or the lives of their children. The Ghanaian society is a very religious one, hence, all religious leaders such as pastors, elders, imams , etc, must endeavour to educate their followers on child-rights and child-care. Our chiefs, queen-mothers and other traditional rulers must also propagate the gospel of child rights to their subjects. The United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights(OHCHR) defines human rights as rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, language, or any other status.http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx. Human rights also are child rights and should be respected as such. In addition, special prayers should be offered by all religious groups for the safety and well being of our children. If our children who are the future leaders are being destroyed by their parents, then, what hope is there for us as a nation? Perhaps who knows if there could be a spiritual undertone to this phenomenon? The child has the right to live and I perfectly agree with Plato when he said: “No man should bring children into the world; who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nurture and education”. If one is not ready to be a responsible parent, then one should not father or mother a child at all, hence spare society of some of these needless deaths. The story is told of Mother Emilia who in the mist of economic hardship of the mid 1930s and ill health was advised to terminate her pregnancy for her own good, because she had serious kidney complications and her heart was giving way. She however chose to carry the pregnancy to its logical conclusion of nine months. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy whom she named Carol, who later became Pope John Paul II; a celebrated world leader of the late 20th and the early 21st century. She passed on to glory ten years later. There are a countless number of such stories in our Society today. Many parents may be going through diverse challenges in life, but just as Mother Emilia was able to stand her grounds to preserve the life of one of the greatest men that ever walked on planet earth, we can preserve the lives our children. Let’s preserve the lives of our children, nurture and educate them for a brighter future of our nation. They will be our guide and our pillows to rest on in our old age. Remember children are like visitors when well treated, they will always come back to us. The Ghanaian child deserves better than this. God bless our homeland Ghana. The author is a social commentator Box 2585, Tema, Mobile: 0570898511.

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