JOHN TEYE AFFUM
OF BUSINESS TWO (B) AGE: 16
RESEARCH ON CHILD LABOUR
In recent times, there has been a multiple of
reasons responsible for the high incidence of Child
Labour in this Country.
I wish to examine some of the causes and effects of
this unpleasant situation and put forward suggestions
to remedy it.
To begin with, the current economic problems on
the country cannot be ruled out as a contributor
factor to the high rate of child labour. The
country's economy is weak and inflation is high. The
prices of commodities keep rising every blessed day.
Most parents therefore find it pretty difficult to
make ends meet. They unable to provide the needs of
their children. To be able to sustain themselves and
their children, they are forced to by the prevailing
economic circumstance to turn their own children into
farm assistance, hawkers etc. This situation can be
termed as child labour.
Parental neglect is also one of the numerous
factors responsible for the high incidence of child
labour. It is very sad to find some poor and sometimes
rich parents who are capable of providing the basic
needs of their children neglecting them and expecting
these children to struggle and fend for themselves.
In addition, the high incidence of child abuse is
directly responsible for the high rate of child labour
in many of our homes throughout the country. Some
parents beat their children mercilessly for committing
minor offences. They are insulted at will and denied
food for deciding to take a rest from work. Quite
often, they are thrown out of the house and denied of
a comfortable sleeping place. To liberate themselves
from such dehumanising situation, these children sneak
out of parental control for the streets to live on
their own. They therefore engage in all sorts of odd
jobs like hawking; cleaning car windscreens, shoeshine
to make a living.
The high incidences of devoice and separation is
also responsible for the situation. It is not uncommon
for marriages to break and as soon as they are
contracted on the alter. When this happens, the men
in particular do not hesitate to sign documents for
new marriages. In the event of this the children born
out of the first marriage can only be termed
unfortunate. The newly- wed takes absolute control of
the house and property of her husband. The stepmother
will sometimes treat the children is contempt and
force them to do all kinds of inhuman jobs. In a
terrible situation like this one only expects the
frustrated children to run to the streets and other
homes to work on their own survive.
In the light of the problems posed by the4
involvement of our children in income generating
activities, I wish to put forward the following
suggestions for consideration to ensure the
eradication of this unfortunate situation.
There should be social mobilization and
sensitisation drives on all towns and villages
throughout the country to explain to parents the need
to provide the essential needs of their children.
They should be made to understand that catering for
the child is a profitable investment since it is the
child who would grow to sustain them in their old age.
The governments, churches and non-governmental
organizations should join hands to help save the
future of our children. I also wish to take this
opportunity to appeal passionately to the government
to adopt measures to inject sanity into our economy.
If the economy were improved parents would be better
placed to provide the basic needs of their children
and give them access to education, thereby preventing
them from going out into the streets to fend for
themselves.
Lastly governments should put measures in place
to ensure that marriages are stabilizes. Steps should
be taken to ensure the in the events of devoice or
separation, parents are properly bounded to protect
and cater for the needs of their children.
It is my fervent hope that the suggestions that have
been given would be carefully considered to eliminate
this social evil.
CYNTHIA AYEBIRE GENERAL ARTS THREE
AGE: 18YEARS
A RESEACH ON CHILD LABOUR
A child according to Ghana's 4th Republican
constitution of 1992 is "a person below the age of
eighteen"
Under the constitution, the child has certain rights
and privileges that are in conformity with the
international convention of children's rights.
In Ghana children of school going age are unable to
school for various reason. Most of such children are
found loitering or selling goods along the streets of
the country in the commercial areas, notably where
there is traffic jams. Some too, especially females
who come to the city mostly from the Northern part of
the country are porters "kayayoo."
Children are seen as the future of every nation thus
every nation is duty bound to raise her children in a
quantitative manner.
Child labour as we are aware has taken a global
dimension. From the developing nations of Africa to
the middle-income countries of Asia right up to the
advanced countries of Europe and America. This has
been of great concern, and has trapped many in a cycle
of poverty and robbed them of their freedom, dignity,
education and good health.
The courses of child labour can be listed as the
following.
1.Poverty and parental neglect, The fact that some
parents are unable to carter for the needs of their
children force them to use them as farm helps,
hawkers, cracking stones for sale etc, to supplement
the family income. Some simply neglect their
responsibly of taking care of their children.
2. Broken homes, this often lives the up-keep of the
children to a single parent, most often the women who
may have to engage the children who should have been
in school in some economic ventures to raise income
for the family.
3.Unemploymnet, like poverty when parents are
unemployed or not gainfully employed they are unable
meet the basic needs of the children and will have to
use the children to work for income.
4.School-drop out, most children who drop out of
school take to the streets to enrage in all manner of
jobs to take care of themselves and sometimes their
parents who are sometimes old and unable to work.
5.Large size of families, the issue of family planning
has not gone well and many people make large families
they are not able to comfortably look after. When this
happens, some of the children run away from home and
try to make a living by themselves. They do this by
selling, cleaning car windscreens, pushing tracks,
cracking stones etc.
6.There is also the incidence of disabled persons
especially the blind/crippled employing and using some
children to take them around to beg for arms.
These among others are some of the courses of child
labour.
Let us examine some of the problems related to child
labour.
Children on the streets are introduced to crime by
their peers. Some learn to steal and drugs. Vulnerable
females are sometimes raped or forced into sex trade
to supplement the little they make. This exposes them
to several dangers including contracting sexual
transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS.
Some of them of the girls take boyfriends who had
accommodation so that they could get a place to sleep.
Here poverty can be seen at work and I couldn't agree
more with Mr. Tabo Mbeke who said recently on
television that if poverty were fought in Africa,
HIV/AIDS would not be a big problem.
Shelter after the hard days work is missing, at the
end of the day a lot of these children sleep under the
sky in front of stores or stalls. They are exposed to
the hash condition of the weather and some fall sick
and end up using the little money earned for hospital
bills.
It would be noticed that the problem is centred on
poverty. Based on that I wish to make the following
recommendations.
1.Individual income levels should be examined and
workers paid reasonable wages to enable them fend for
their children.
2. They should be laws enacted to check parents who
are able and fail to provide the basic needs of the
children and allow them to work when they are suppose
to be in school.
3.Progammes should be put in place to cater for
children who dropout of school to learn vocations.
4. Good family planning methods should be adopted to
ensure that families give birth to the number of
children they can conveniently take care of.
5.Laws should be enacted to encourage people from
engaging children under-age to work for them.
6.Success stories of rehabilitated children should be
carefully documented and published for people to see
their usefulness and take advantage of them.
7.Governmnets should strengthen their social services
so that every child could acquire at least basic
employable skills to equip them for adult life.
In conclusion I would like to say that the problem of
child labour cannot be solved by one group of
individuals acting in isolation, it is therefore
necessary for all stakeholders to contribute their
quota in alleviating this. I believe strongly that is
all get involved in fighting this battle, the future
of our children would be bright and we can be
confident that we will have be better generation to
come.
