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Photo Courtesy: Abod |
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Child Labour – a Blot on Ghana's Child
Law
By Samuel Dowuona
The case of DOMESTIC SERVITUDE has been practiced in
Ghana for years. Most Ghanaians would tell you that: “I
stayed with an auntie, uncle, or some other relative as I
grew up. It was part of the social
arrangement for children of poorer
relatives to live with richer ones with the hope that they
would not only get a better life, but get education. The
reality, however, is not always
the case.
Early in the morning, very early in the morning, long before
the cock could even think of crowing, the sound of a
sweeping broom occasionally interrupted by sounds of very
weak footsteps comes across the cemented compound into my
room. This is not new because it happens every morning and
that is enough to wake me up.
It is always one and the same person, eight year old Lamisi,
from Savelugu Nantong in the Upper West region but now
domiciled in Accra as the house help of my landlady.
She sleeps at 12 midnight because she has to stay awake and
attend to her tyrant madam, my landlady. Lamisi wakes up as
early as 4am (sometimes earlier), before everybody else
because her madam insists that she (Lamisi) must wake up and
do some house chores before she (the madam) wakes up else,
“trouble for her”, as we say in Ghana.
During the day when everyone is gone to work, Lamisi stays
at home all by herself working and probably sleeping
intermittently as that would be the only time she could make
up for the sleep lost the previous night.
But the danger is that male visitors who come to the house
in the absence of everybody could take advantage and abuse
her. Even though that has not happened yet, Lamisi remains
very vulnerable to that danger, especially since she feels
sleepy and worn-out during the day
But guess what, her madam is never satisfied. with anything
she does. In fact, she never appreciates her efforts;
notwithstanding the fact that the manner she treats Lamisi
is a violation of her (Lamisi’s) rights as enshrined in the
National Laws on Child Labour captured in Article 28 (2) of
the 1992 constitution and Sections 87 – 90 of the Children’s
Act, 1998, Act 560.
The frequency and scope of child labour in Ghana today
creates the impression that there are no laws to protect
children from such practices, but the fact is there are
laws, and like all other laws, except a very few no one
cares to enforce them.
The Ghana Child Labour Survey in 2003 reveals a very
striking note – that as much as 91% of children engaged in
serious forms of child labour have both parents alive. Yet
these children have been condemned to a life of squalor,
deprivation and abuse, a practice that would surely push
them off the path of proper growth and development,
education, health onto obvious poverty.
Lamisi’s case is a classical example of domestic servitude,
one of the nation’s worse forms of child labour facilitated
by negligent parents, who continue to receive monthly
remittances from my persons such as my landlady as payment
for the “slaving” of their daughter. Domestic servitude is
widespread in Ghana, but is hardly considered illegal.
The Child Labour Unit of the International Labour
Organization (ILO) of the United Nations, defined child
labour as any form work children are involved in, which is
of such intensity that it is detrimental to their education
and harmful to their health and development.
Like Lamisi, many other children are involved in several
other activities, which may not necessarily be domestic
servitude but are equally condemned by the law as child
labour.
A large number of children across the country are into
illegal mining, known as galamsey, stone quarrying, hunting,
commercial agriculture, fishing, drug peddling,
prostitution, ritual servitude (trokosi), street hawking (streetism)
and porterage (kayayo) and truck pushing, usually done by
young boys.
These are practices that constitute a serious violation of
the law and yet are looked upon by society and politicians
as if they are normal. Politicians only go as far as paying
“lip service” in their attempt to deal with the problem.
CAUSES
Parental negligence is the main reason for this phenomenon.
But there are several causes including broken homes, ethnic
conflicts, outmoded cultural practices (trokosi),
discriminatory gender roles, ignorance, misplaced priorities
by parents, unplanned and large families, population growth,
peer pressure (where children are compelled by the
colleagues to migrate from the north to the south to engage
in labour) and more recently HIV/AIDS, which produces
orphans forced into labour to fend for themselves.
ILO surveys the world over shows that 20 per cent of child
workers are under the age of 10. In Ghana, the minimum age
for work is 15 under (Act 560). What this means is that the
rights of the likes of Lamisi are clearly being violated and
with impunity as the even though the law is on their side,
no one, not even the large number of so-called child NGO’s,
talks for them, nor hears their drawn out voices.
Article 28 (2) of the 1992 constitution clearly states that;
“Every child has the right to be protected from work that is
exploitative and detrimental to his or her development.”
This is supported by the by section 87 of the Children’s
Act, which also adds categorically that “No person shall
engage a child in exploitative labour. Labour is
exploitative of a child when it deprives the child of
education, health and development.”
To the extent that Lamisi and other children involved in all
forms of labour are denied education, adequate sleep, and
the joy of childhood.
The law is emphatically against engaging children to work at
night, ie between 8pm and 6am, hazardous work before age 18.
Hazardous work includes all the tasks mentioned earlier as
well as working in manufacturing industries where chemicals
are used or produced.
They are also not supposed to work in hotels and bars where
their morals could be compromised.
But we forget that the consequences of a continuous state of
child labour is a cycle of lack of skilled labour,
unemployment and underemployment and its attendant poverty,
which would obvious lead to more child labourers as poor
parents( old child labourers) are also likely to force their
children into early working conditions extra money, just to
get by.
Statistics available at the Child Labour Unit of the ILO
indicate that 2.5 million (39%) of the 6.4 million children
in Ghana are involved in economic activity and an estimated
1.3 million (20%) children are engaged in child labour
proper.
Out of the 1.3 in child labour more than one million of them
are under the age of 13, which is a serious crime because
the law allows children from age 13 to be engaged in light
work, which is not harmful to their health, education and
development.
Fifty seven percent (57%) of children in child labour are
engaged in commercial agriculture, forestry and hunting,
20.7% are in sales, 9.5% are in production and 11%
constitute other general workers such as porters (kayaye),
truck pushers, driver’s mates, house helps and in ritual
servitude like trokosi among others.
An additional estimated 242,074 children are engaged in
hazardous child labour. ILO research showed that some even
die and their death is concealed.
Girls used to dominate street hawking, but now there is a
fair balance of boys and girls who are usually killed by
motorists.
Like all other illegal practices, child labour has serious
consequences some of which are obvious and yet society as
well as domestic, community and political leaders have not
only turned a blind eye, but also turned a deaf ear to calls
by concerned bodies and individuals to deal with it by
instituting adequate measures to
ensure that the laws passed by Parliamentarians are
respected and implemented.
Let me say it in case we have all forgotten, child labour
deprives children of life. It keeps them from being
educated, from attaining proper
growth and development and above all,
maintaining good health.
Countrymen and women, it exploits their potential and
vulnerability, abuses their fundamental human rights,
threatens their future and in all cases harms them
physically, psychologically, morally and spiritually.
In the ultimate, it perpetuates the vicious cycle of
poverty, which affect the whole nation to a large extent
through increased crime, corruption and the dependency
syndrome.
We can pretend not to care about child labour, but we can’t
wish away the consequences of a huge army of unemployed
youth who are nothing, but a liability in the nation’s
social register. We need to opt
for nothing but the call of the ILO Child Labour Unit and
“Say no to child labour, yes to education.”
Samuel Dowuona
Ghanadot.com
December 15, 2006
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