By Emmanuel Nyatsikor
Adaklu Waya (V/R), June 11, GNA – The persistent failure by caregivers to meet children’s basic physical, psychological and emotional needs would likely result in serious impairment of their health, protection or development.
Also adolescents could be at a higher risk of neglect than younger children, with society expecting them to assume grown-up roles and fend for themselves.
Ms Linda Kafui Loh, a Social Development Officer of the Department of Community Development Tuesday stated this at the beginning of a two-day training workshop for members of the Adaklu District Child Protection Committee at Adaklu Waya.
The training workshop is aimed at equipping participants’ knowledge and practical skills in the use of new toolkits developed to support effective child protection response activities.
It is also to provide an opportunity for them to share and discuss best practices on child protection issues and modern parenting.
Ms Loh noted that this failure by caregivers could lead to protection concerns as the children would involve themselves in unsupervised works.
She noted that it was estimated that more than 1,000 children and adolescents were working as slave labourers on fishing boats across the country.
“Because of this the boys involved themselves in mining and other forms of hazardous work whilst the girls are involved in sexual exploitation,” she said.
The Social Development Officer mentioned some forms of neglect such as medical, emotional, medical, educational, and lack of supervision and guidance.
She intimated that poor family and community care and support during the early years of a child would inevitably lead to poor outcomes for both adolescents and society in general.
Ms Loh stated that violence was often perpetuated in Ghana in the domestic environment rather than from strangers.
She mentioned physical, sexual, emotional, neglect, negligent treatment, maltreatment, and exploitation as some forms of violence often experienced by adolescents.
She noted that girls and women in Ghana tend to justify domestic violence against girls and women in certain circumstances more than the opposite sex, adding that this could be because of deeply rooted gender inequality and gender power.
Ms Loh said domestic violence has severe consequences in terms of being inter-generational linkages between experiences of violence in the family of origin.
She stated that sexual violence was one of the traumatic, pervasive and common human rights violations that disproportionately affected girls and women of all ages.
She said in 2015, more than one in every three adolescent girls aged 15 – 19 years in the country were reported to have experienced at least one act of sexual violence.
The Social Development Officer noted that self-esteem, self-confidence assertiveness, negotiation skills, and strong support from family and community were critical for adolescent boys and girls to avoid negative peer pressure.
“Bad pressure causes negative consequences for the individual like trouble with family, law and bad health among others,” she said.
Ms. Loh advised parents to guide and support adolescents to acquire the right knowledge and skills to protect themselves from online exploitation, adding “guide them at the online space in a way that is safe, positive, and constructive.”
GNA
Edited by Maxwell Awumah /Audrey Dekalu