Challenging
heights, a child rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) that
envisions “a world where every child goes to school and lives in a
loving and caring family”, has established that child trafficking
persists in parts of the country. For this reason, the organisation is
committed to working with governmental agencies and other
non-governmental organisations, to address the issue.
Through
research and over 10 years of operations, the organisation has
discovered that child trafficking in Ghana is caused by poverty,
ignorance, poor parental care and lack of support for children.
Furthermore, weak political commitment reflected in inadequate
allocation of resources to combat human trafficking and weak enforcement
of laws and implementation of national policies and plans, also
contribute to the problem.
Human Trafficking Act
The Human
Trafficking Act, 2005 (Act 694) of Ghana, defines human trafficking as
“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, trading or
receipt of persons within and across national borders by the use of
threats, force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception,
the abuse of power or exploitation of vulnerability, or giving or
receiving payments and benefits to achieve consent”.
Child
trafficking, therefore, refers to the recruitment, transport and
transfer of any person below the age of 18, with or without their
consent for the purpose of exploitation or abuse of position of
vulnerability. Exploitation includes but is not limited to forced labour
and sexual exploitation.
The Act strongly prohibits all forms of
human trafficking and makes human trafficking a criminal offence liable
on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five
years.
As a country, we cannot downplay the existence and
pernicious impact of child trafficking on our children and the nation’s
development. It actually undermines our respect for human rights and
human dignity as a country, as well as erodes the nation’s human
capital.
Population of children
The sixth Ghana Living
Standard Survey (GLSS 6) estimates that there are over 8.6 million
children between the ages of 5-17 in Ghana. Sadly, over 1.8 million
(21.8%) of them are engaged in child labour and over 1.2 million (14.2%)
are engaged in hazardous child labour.
An International Labour
Organisation/Government of Ghana study in 2013, estimates that there are
49,000 children working in the fishing industry on the Lake Volta. Out
of this number, over 21,000 of them are engaged in hazardous child
labour. The Global Slavery Index (GSI) estimates that over 190,000
Ghanaians are living in conditions of “modern slavery.”
Strategic approach
Given
the above national context the NGO has adopted what it describes as a
three-tier theory of change to drive individual, societal and systemic
level of change. With reference to this framework, the organisation has
adopted a four-prong strategy in the context of identifying the root
causes of child trafficking in Ghana. These strategies are protection,
education, livelihood and advocacy.
The child protection strategy
entails a preventative tactic of raising awareness of behavioural
change and a curative tactic of rescue, rehabilitation, reintegration
and monitoring of victims of child trafficking. The education strategy
involves providing affordable education for children from deprived
families and general educational supports to children.
Also, the
livelihood strategy focuses on sustainable economic empowerment for
deprived families as a way of reducing poverty levels, which has been
identified as an underlying factor for child trafficking in Ghana. And
finally, the advocacy strategy focuses on influencing national and
international policies, laws and programmes that protect children and
also push for law enforcement.
Programmes
Since 2003, the
organisation has supported thousands of children and youths in Ghana,
and it is estimated that, over 40,000 children and youth have directly
benefited from its programmes. The organisation has also rescued over
1,000 trafficked children from forced labour, and also provided not less
than $100,000 seed capital to over 560 deprived families to improve
their living standards.
The NGO has also sensitised or educated
an estimated 100,000 children, men and women on child protection and
child trafficking in Ghana. Challenging Heights and the Anti-Human
Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of the Ghana Police Service on June 5, this
year, launched a national Turn Back Human Trafficking campaign, to focus
on securing citizen and police vigilance such as systematically
screening of vehicles for trafficked persons.
Action plans
The
organisation, has also made significant input into policy development,
review and reforms in Ghana. For instance, it has played key roles in
developing action plans for the implementation of policies such as
National Plan of Action (NPA) to eliminate worst forms of child labour,
Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), the post-2015 Development Agenda
and the Education Strategic Plan (2010-2020).
Challenging Heights
envisages a child trafficking-free country, and hereby, calls on the
government and related organisations and agencies to eliminate it
completely. |
| |
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment