Kadjebi (O/R), June 10, GNA-The Kadjebi District Office of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has embarked on campaign to educate the public on the need to avoid child labour.
The campaign formed part of the Commission’s role to promote and protect the rights of children as the act was an abuse of their fundamental rights.
It was also meant to commemorate 2022 World Day Against Child Labour.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Kadjebi in the Oti Region, Mr. Eric Arthur Fynn, the Kadjebi District Director of CHRAJ, said any work that threatened the health, education and development of the child constituted child labour.
“Its worst forms constitute slave-like work that is likely to harm the health, safety and morals of a child”, he added.
Mr. Fynn, however, said not all work done by children should be classified as child labour as participation of children or adolescents above the minimum age of 15 years for admission to employment in work that did not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, was regarded as child work.
He said such activities included assisting in a family business, running of errands, and assisting in domestic chores outside school hours and during school holidays; adding these activities contributed to children’s development and to the welfare of their families.
Mr. Fynn said the Ghana Living Standards survey held in 2014, estimated the prevalence of child labour in Ghana at 21. 8 percent of people between 5 and 17 years with one-in-five children.
He said the report also revealed that more children in the rural areas were engaged in child labour (30.2 per cent) as compared to those in the urban areas (12.4 per cent).
Mr. Fynn, who spoke on “Child Labour is an abuse of the fundamental rights of the child,” at a programme, said child labour and its forms were an affront to the fundamental human rights and freedoms of a child.
He mentioned poverty, economic and socio-culture factors, and human rights/abuse as some of the causes of child labour.
The District Director, thus, appealed to parents to provide the child with his or her basic needs in order not to fall prey to child labour.
GNA