Accra, Nov. 9, GNA – More than 16 journalists have benefitted from a training on effective and accurate reporting on forced and child labour issues in Ghana.
The training under the Forced Labour Indicators Project (FLIP) allowed the journalists to be equipped with the relevant information and skills to help reduce forced labour issues in to the barest minimum.
The training was also to enhance advocacy and public education on how to use International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) indicators on forced labour to identify and address the menace in Ghana.
It will also help empower the Social Mobilisation of Partners Against Child Labour (SOMOPAC) in their work and mandate on child labour and forced labour reportage.
SOMOPAC is a group of journalists being trained to give reportage on child labour and forced labour issues in Ghana.
The workshop was organised by the Global March Africa on Child Labour, with technical and financial support from FLIP Verite and the US Department of Labour.
Mr Andrew Tagoe, the Regional Coordinator for Global March Against Child Labour, told the GNA child labour could not be defined by using emotions, but by the law rooted in international and national conventions.
He said, “we are exposing our journalists to the laws that helps us to define child labour and forced labour and forming a coalition or a group of media personnel, who will specialize in the forced labour and child labour reportage.”
Mr Tagoe said the education given was paramount, as it would help identify people at workplaces in Ghana, who were in conditions that were unacceptable by law, and how to address those conditions.
He reiterated that as a worker in Ghana, there was the need for an external protection, hence the need for all workers to join a Union or form a Union.
“…as a worker in Ghana, you need to be protected, and for a worker to be protected, you cannot protect yourself, you need protection from outside,” he said.
He added that, “That is why trade unions are very relevant to bring to the world of work. If you are two or three, wherever you are, you can join a union or form a union.”
GNA