By Florence Afriyie Mensah
Kumasi, Feb.01, GNA – As part of efforts to protect and enhance the well-being of children, the Ashanti Regional Child Protection Committee will this year, focus on getting rid of foreign children begging on the streets of Kumasi.
The Committee will also identify and interact with street-connected children on ways to assist them to become useful in society.
Mr Stephen Ofosu, Ashanti Regional Director, Department of Children under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), who stated these said issues on children remained delicate and all efforts to address them must be intensified across board.
He was speaking at the Ashanti Regional Child Protection Committee Meeting for the fourth quarter of 2023 and first quarter 2024 in Kumasi.
Mr Ofosu said the Committee would this year draw an action plan on how to bring back the Kumasi Children’s Park, which had been non-functional for years now.
This, he said, had become necessary since such facilities ignited children’s passion and engendered holistic development of the younger generations.
According to the Regional Director, efforts would also be intensified through community engagements, mass media information dissemination and public education to discuss child protection issues.
Madam Safia Tamimu, an Officer in-charge of Child Marriage, MoGCSP, made presentations on the global programme to end child marriage.
She mentioned that Ghana was also doing well in programmes to address child marriages.
Madam Tamimu highlighted gender-transformative approaches which would promote the transformation of social structures, policies, legal systems that perpetuated and legitimised gender inequalities.
Mr. Christopher Lartey, Principal Programmes Officer, MoGCSP took the committee members through the Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) concepts.
He said reporting any sexual exploitation and abuse allegations, concerning or suspicious by any aid worker was mandatory.
GNA