By Stanley Awalime, GNA
Sogakope (VR), Nov. 15, GNA - Madam Helen Dzide, South Tongu District Director, National Youth Authority, has asked Youth Advisory Board Leaders of the South Tongu District not to allow themselves to be exploited for cheap labour.
She said it was every child’s right to be educated and protected from exploitative labour and degrading treatments.
Madam Helen Dzide said this at Sogakope at the 2019 Refresher Training Programme organised for Youth Advisory Board Leaders to create aware on children rights.
She took the children through what their rights and responsibilities were and asked them to educate their peers to make society aware that children had the right to be protected from slavery and forced labour and could also refuse betrothal and marriages.
“You are not supposed to be brushed aside in society, it is your right to be protected from doing works that endangers your life ..., if anybody is in your various communities that is being treated in a manner that infringe upon the Child’s Right, it is your responsibility to make the authorities aware, the Social welfare Department is always there to assist so that we save our brothers and sisters suffering from child labour,” Madam Dzide said.
She said it was good for children to help their parents at home but not to do any work that would affect their education and health.
“Parents are not prevented from making their children assist them but when the assistance takes the child out of the classroom or makes the child to engage in a money-making venture to take care of the family at the cost of the child’s education, health or standard of living, the Right of the Child is abused,” she said.
Some of the participants told Ghana News Agency they were not happy how some parents withdrew their children from school and allowed them to be sent to Yeji to engage in fishing when they knew the harsh health conditions the children were exposed to.
They pledged to educate their peers to protect children from activities that took them away from the classroom and endangered their lives.
The 2019 Refresher Training Programme was organised by the National Youth Authority in partnership with Plan International, Ghana, to train children from nine communities in the District.
GNA
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