Child labour in Ghana is influenced by poverty

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Public Sector Reforms Secretariat, Thomas Kusi-Boafo has called on government to prioritize the welfare of children in order to end child labour in the country.

The world marked a day against Child Labour on Saturday, June 12 to globally raise awareness against child labour.

”Children around the world are routinely engaged in paid and unpaid forms of work that are not harmful to them. However, they are classified as child labourers when they are either too young to work, or are involved in hazardous activities that may compromise their physical, mental, social or educational development. In the least developed countries, slightly more than one in four children (ages 5 to 17) are engaged in labour that is considered detrimental to their health and development”.

”Africa ranks highest among regions both in the percentage of children in child labour — one-fifth — and the absolute number of children in child labour — 72 million. Asia and the Pacific ranks second highest in both these measures — 7% of all children and 62 million in absolute terms are in child labour in this region,” according to a UN publication.

In Ghana, the situation is more disturbing as many children around the ages of four and five or even less are spotted on the streets either hawking or begging for alms daily.

Speaking on Peace FM’s ”Kokrokoo”, Mr. Kusi-Boafo explained that child labour is high in Ghana due to poverty.

To him, there will be little to no solution should there not be an even distribution of resources for each family.

He asked the managers of the economy to introduce, like the free Senior High School, more policies and initiatives to reduce poverty saying ”the biggest solution to this child labour is for us to fight poverty at all cost. Let us work hard to reduce poverty or else there is no law that can work effectively”.

This, he believed, is a sure way to nip child labour in the bud.