By Elizabeth Larkwor Baah, GNA
Tema, Nov. 04, GNA – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says violence against children accounts for an estimated 11 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), highlighting the economic cost of abuse and the need for increased investment in child protection.
Ms Lucia Soleti, Chief Child Protection UNICEF, said violence against children imposed significant financial costs on governments, families and communities through expenditure on healthcare, social welfare interventions and justice services.
Ms Soleti, who attributed the 11 per cent estimate to UNICEF data, said responding to cases of child abuse required additional resources to provide medical care, mobilise social workers, investigate cases and facilitate legal processes.
She made this known during a stakeholders’ meeting organised by SOS Children’s Villages in Ghana which brought together district assemblies, civil society organisations, among others, saying that government of Ghana’s 0.01 per cent of GDP investment to child protection was highly inadequate.
She said more than 62,000 cases had been recorded in the Social Welfare Information Management System (SWIMS), describing it as a significant achievement, and added that more than 7,000 social service workers had also received training.
She stated that investing in preventive child protection services was less costly than responding to cases after violence had occurred, making prevention an important investment in human development and national economic growth.
She explained that children who experienced violence and abuse could lose important educational opportunities and suffer health consequences that could affect their future earning potential, saying that such experiences could also reduce the productivity and economic prospects of families, making violence against children not only a social concern but also an economic development issue.
Ms Soleti noted that although the government continued to invest resources in education, healthcare and social protection, inadequate attention to child protection could undermine the benefits of those investments, adding that children continued to drop out of school, engage in street trading and experience abuse despite investments in education and healthcare, indicating the need for stronger child protection interventions.
She therefore urged the government and other stakeholders to prioritise preventive interventions, identify areas requiring support and integrate child protection into broader social service delivery systems, stating that the use of existing community structures, including Community Child Protection Committees (CCPCs), could strengthen efforts to identify children at risk, facilitate referrals and improve responses to protection concerns.
She also called for improved documentation of child protection cases through the Social Welfare Information Management System (SWIMS), saying reliable data would help district assemblies understand the scale of protection concerns and determine the resources required to address them.
Ms Soleti said some child protection cases were not being entered into the system, making it difficult to obtain complete information for planning, monitoring and reporting and urged social welfare officers to document cases consistently and use the available information to identify underserved communities, service gaps and delays in responding to reported cases.
She called on district assemblies to commit adequate resources to child protection services, including transportation, fuel, communication, staff time and supervision, to enable social welfare and community development officers to perform their duties effectively.
She said district authorities should also identify available funding sources and take responsibility for addressing service gaps within their jurisdictions, rather than relying solely on support from development partners.
The expert proposed that a portion of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) be allocated to child protection, describing the suggested allocation as a small investment compared with the other development priorities financed through the fund.
She said effective child protection required collaboration between national and district authorities, social welfare officers and community structures, as well as clear responsibilities and the consistent application of established standards and procedures.
She urged stakeholders to monitor the release of budgets, the number of cases managed and documented in SWIMS, referral timelines and the number of communities reached with child protection interventions.
She said child protection should be recognised as an investment that could prevent future costs, protect children’s development and strengthen the country’s human capital.
GNA
Edited by Laudia Anyorkor Nunoo/Kenneth Odeng Adade
Reporter: Elizabeth Larkwor
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