Renowned lawyer David Olaga has called on the government to ensure the smooth implementation of laws against child labor.
He also charged the government to provide the necessary resources for the menace to be curbed.
Speaking in an interview with Max Morning Dew in Accra on Monday, the lawyer, who doubles as a pastor, said child labor laws were not being adhered to by various parents and guardians in the country.
He noted that Ghanaians did not understand the laws and expressed an urgent need for the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection (MoGCSP) to embark on a project that aims at educating Ghanaians on child labor and what constitutes child labor.
Explaining the term child labor, Olaga said it’s any work that deprives children below the age of 18 of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and mental development.
He stated that many parents unknowingly have subjected their children to child labor and needed to understand the concept before they could desist from the act.
Olaga observed that some children work from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., stressing that it was child labor as it compromised the dignity of that child.
In moving forward, he appealed to the government to set up a monitoring team to rid the streets of beggars, who were mostly children under the age of 12.
He termed the foreign children who were begging on the principal streets of Odokor, Kaneshie, Circle, Accra, and its environs “child labor, of which the government must curb the menace since our laws frown upon it.”
Olaga stated that laws including the Constitution of Ghana talk about the dignity of children; the Labor Act 2003 and the Children’s Act 1998 all clearly spell out what a child could do and could not do; thus, their implementation might be closely followed for the wellbeing of every child.
Source: Ghana/MaxTV/MaxFM/max.com.gh/Joyceline Natally Cudjoe
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