Despite numerous efforts to combat child labour, the practice is still prevalent in many parts of Ghana.
Stakeholders have intensified education on the need to highlight the disadvantages of child labour for the affected children in the future.
According to researchers and non-governmental organizations, child labour is very common in farming and mining communities in Ghana.
In Wromso, a community in the Asutifi South District of the Ahafo Region, local authorities say they have been struggling to deal with the problem.
The District Chief Executive for the area, Robert Dwomo Mensah, has vowed that his administration will take stringent measures to clamp down on child labour.
“Child labour is prevalent in the district, especially in this community, Wromso, where we have mining and agriculture combined. However, there are some NGOs that have been working on this issue. We believe that with continuous education, we can stop it. Minors are not supposed to work, so we are going to go after people who allow minors to work or work with minors. We are also asking the social welfare department to intensify education on this issue,” said DCE Robert Dwomo Mensah.
The non-governmental organization Nature Aid is also working to raise awareness about child labour and to encourage stakeholders to play their respective roles in addressing this issue.
“Our main objective at Nature Aid Ghana is to protect children and women. As the world commemorates World Day Against Child Labour on June 12th each year, we also believe it is important to raise awareness about child labour in the month of June. We do this with funding from DKA Austria, a foundation that has contracted us to raise awareness about child labour every year. We specifically visit cocoa farming areas and mining areas where we believe children are forced into labour. We do this to remind parents, teachers, stakeholders, and the government of the need to eliminate child labour,” said Joseph Baradoe, the Executive Director of Nature Aid Ghana.
In order to ensure a sustainable way of addressing the issue of child labour in Wromso and its surroundings, Nature Aid has partnered with the Asutifi South District Assembly to set up a committee to promote the agenda of fighting child labour in the area.
