Children's Rights indicate that a child’s interests are to be given paramount consideration. This principle is in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on Children’s Rights.
Admittedly, "the child’s best interests" principle is vague, and it is said to be an open invitation to apply whatever cultural norms on current upbringing.
Yet, because the principle is worded in relative terms, it performs the vital function of ranking contradictory claims or rules. Hence, whenever the right to preserve a culture comes into conflict with a child’s interests, the latter prevails.
Over the last two decades or so, there have arisen principally in Africa, some agitations in favour of child rights laws that possess some noteworthy features. Key among them are the attempt to fasten the responsibility for the existence of child labour on the intemperance, poverty and inhumanity of parents and guardians; who, it is claimed, swear falsely to their children’s age in order that they may secure the miserable pittance child labour receives.
In Ghana, the government has made efforts on the elimination of child labour pursuant to Article 28(2) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana which provides that “every child has the right to be protected from engaging in work that constitutes a threat to his health, education or development”. This provision finds expression in the Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560). Access to quality basic education is the right response to child labour. Its fundamental importance to the process of national development is reflected in Article 25 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana which upholds Free, Compulsory and Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) as a basic constitutional right.
Efforts at eliminating child labour The ILO-IPEC, Cocoa Communities Partnership project has also contributed significantly towards the elimination of child labour. It gave over 458 formal education teachers, head teachers, district education directors, circuit supervisors and district education oversight committees in-service training in pedagogy/modern methods of teaching and supporting Children's Rights through Education, the Arts and the Media (SCREAM) methodology. Also, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) collaborated with the project in training 300 untrained teachers in three districts in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Despite the above work done, child labour persists even though the Children’s Rights Act (1998) the Courts Act (1993), Labour Act (2003), Human Trafficking Act (2005), Juvenile Justice Act (Act 563), the Education Act 2008, the 1992 Republican Constitution, and the National Plan of Action (NPA); meant to eliminate it, exist.
I was exceedingly disheartened and embarrassed; when I read the recent Ghana Statistical Service survey (Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 6) August 2014) that 21.8 per cent of children aged five -17 engaged in child labour. This means one of every five Ghanaian children is a victim. The big question at this point is: Have we been willing, in spite of all the laws, to uproot this menace?
Role of media It is in the light of the above that the GJA and the mass media have an important role to play; by communicating information about child labour, they can have a significant influence on public policies concerning this issue. Radio, television and print are considered as the media which carry the most influence with the populations of developed and developing countries.
The writer would wish to commend the GJA for its communiqué issued in 2012 which called on media practitioners to pledge to give wider and consistent coverage on child labour issues and interventions in Ghana in order to increase public awareness and action on it.
It also called on the National Steering Committee on Child Labour, private organisations, social partners, international organisations and civil society to ensure the effective implementation of the National Plan of Action (NPA) on the elimination of child labour. It asked practitioners to accept and support the NPA on the elimination of child labour and commit themselves to raise public awareness and advocate its effective implementation.
Following the GLSS6 survey for 2014, which paints a gloomy picture of the child labour menace in Ghana, the fight against child labour should no longer be seen as the sole responsibility of government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) only.
The involvement of the media with a huge listenership and readership base will help. This is because the media have become a tool that no one can forgo since it has been changing people's lives. I strongly recommend to the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) to as a matter of national interest, institute ‘Best Reporter on Child Labour Award’ as one of their annual national awards.
The institutionalisation of the award will motivate the media and individual journalists to contribute to combat child labour by highlighting violations committed against working children and prevent other children from getting into such dangerous activities, while providing them with direct educational services and other non-formal education.
People need to be made aware that child labour is not only detrimental to children and a fundamental denial of their rights but also an obstacle to national development.
Through the award, the GJA will help the nation to appreciate the need to regard violation of the rights of children and issues related to children’s safety, privacy, security, education, health, social welfare and all forms of exploitations, as important questions for investigation and public debate.
With the assistance of the ILO-IPEC under the CCP project , a number of steps have been taken to address the issue of child labour but the problem is still far from abating. Unfortunately, the ILO-IPEC CCP project finally ended in November 2014. The question we need to address firmly is how to sustain the gains from January 2015?
It is in this regard that the role of print, electronic media and the GJA becomes crucial in fighting child labour. They can play the catalyst role to educate people on the issues of child labour and how to curb it. It is important that concerted efforts be initiated to assertively deal with the subject. The ostrich-type attitude must be shed and there has to be a proactive approach in projecting the issue in the national interest.
The critical application of mass communication channels and the active participation of journalists and communicators can be strategically beneficial in disseminating ideas and creating consciousness within a short time frame.
The media have the outreach, competence, and ability to reach a large number of people who are crucially wanted to arouse public opinion. The media must be in possession of hard data and also official encouragement to determine the modus operandi for the popularisation of the issue and also for the initiation of investigative reporting. The mobilisation of the media, especially the state electronic media, have become an important necessity because the conventional legal and regulatory approaches have not succeeded in the manner.
Extensive coverage on television can be the catalyst that is so imperatively needed to induce strengthening of the regulatory enforcement system because public opinion will definitely sway favourably towards tackling the scourge of child labour due to this widespread coverage. It would also be considered official sanction or approval if the issue were broadly telecast on television.
