Fatimata Mahami, Tema Regional Director of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), has called on citizens to abolish child labor and enable youngsters to enjoy their development.
According to UNICEF data, around 21% of all children in Ghana aged five to 17 years are participating in child labor, and 14% are engaging in hazardous kinds of labor, she added.
In rural regions, this was twice as prevalent.
"Child labor is a detrimental coping technique for impoverished households, and the majority of youngsters work in the agriculture and fisheries industries.
"The great majority of working children in all areas are unpaid family employees between the ages of five and seven years," Madam Mahami said during the conference.
Tema hosted the start of this year's World Day Against Child Labor.
The theme for this year's World Day Against Child Labour is "Universal Social Protection to End Child Labour."
The event took place at the Ghana News Agency's Tema Industrial News Hub, as part of a collaboration between the Tema Regional Secretariat of CHRAJ and the Agency to raise public awareness about the dangers of child labor.
Available data highlighted aspects that might obstruct the prevention of child labor, such as social standards that thought it appropriate for youngsters to work, according to Madam Mahami.
These societal norms also aimed to promote the idea that many teenage adolescents should be considered as adults, despite the fact that child labor laws and policies are poorly implemented.
the efforts of anti-child labor activists
In addition, the CHRAJ Tema Regional Director raised worry about insufficient resource allocation for child labor prevention and response, insufficient programs to assist working children or prevent child labor, and family dependency on children's income owing to extreme poverty.
Mr. John Ato Brebor, Senior Principal Investigator at CHRAJ, said that as poverty is the leading source of child labor, the government should evaluate its social protection policies to relieve poverty and foster long-term human capital development.