35 Districts plan to check child labour

THIRTY five cocoa-growing districts in the country have prepared an action plan on how to eliminate the worst forms of child labour in cocoa production.
Five of the districts are in the Eastern Region, six in Central, one in Volta, five in Western, eight in Brong Ahafo and 10 in Ashanti.
The plans are to be presented to the government for implementation.
The number adds to the original 11 cocoa-growing districts which presented their action plans for implementation last year.
This is in line with the government’s effort at eliminating the involvement of children from hazardous work in cocoa production.
The Communications Officer of the National Programme for the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour in Cocoa (NPECLC), Ms Patience Dapaah, in an interaction with the Daily Graphic in Accra, said the action plans involved community sensitisation, improvement in basic school facilities, as well as the formation of district child protection committees.
She added that they also involved the use of survey findings on child labour to determine the problems confronting the districts.
To give meaning to the action plans, Ms Dapaah said a memorandum of understanding (MoU) would be signed between the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment and the districts after the government had accepted those plans as satisfactory to ensure their implementation within a budget time frame.
She further explained that capacity building and training workshops were being organised for labour officers from the 35 districts to sensitise them to the plans in order for them to be able to educate the people.
“District chief executives, co-ordinating directors and some selected traditional authorities are also involved in the process,” she said.
Ms Dapaah indicated that the results of the 2007/08 cocoa season survey indicated that community awareness of the dangers of child labour in cocoa had increased, which had necessitated the need for the passage of bye-laws which excluded children from participating in hazardous work.
She noted that those bye-laws were structured in line with the Hazardous Child Labour Activity Framework (HAF) developed to determine at what age children could engage in a certain kind of hazardous activity.
To that end, she stated that HAF was used as a standard to educate community members on hazardous cocoa- farming activities, adding that a network of various organisations, including NGOs and civil society groups, had been formed with the view to eliminating the child labour problem.
The communication officer commended, among other organisations, the Danish Embassy, COCOBOD, UNICEF, the World Cocoa Foundation and the International Labour Organisation for their technical support to the NPECLC to combat the child labour problem.