‘Protect children of school age from economic activities’
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) launched the World Day Against Child Labour in June 2002 to focus attention on the global extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it.
The day is marked on June 12 every year to bring together governments, civil society, workers organisations, and communities to advocate a future of work without children.
Making a statement in an address read on his behalf at Nayorku in the West Mamprusi District in the Northern Region, to mark this year's World Day Against Child Labour in the region, the Executive Director of Regional Advisory and Information Network Systems (RAINS), a Tamale-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Mr Hardi Tijani, advised parents to refrain from the practice of engaging their children of schoolage in economic activities since that would affect their development and survival in future.
Economic ventures
He said it had become a common practice particularly among some parents in rural communities, to engage their children of school age in economic ventures, thereby denying them education and shattering their dreams in life.
Criminal activities
For his part, the West Mamprusi District Director of Social Welfare and Community Development, Mr Abdul-Wahabu Ibrahim, said it was criminal to engage children of school age in any form of economic activity.
He added: “It is wrong and criminal for any child of school- age to engage in economic activities that will affect his or her survival and development.”
He, therefore, called on parents to be responsible by providing food and the essential needs of their children without engaging them in labour.
In his remarks, the West Mamprusi District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr David Wuni, said the best way to end child labour was to monitor to check the supply chain of businesses that engaged children as agents of mobilisation, production and distribution.
He said it was about time parents recognised child labour as a form of slavery and an abuse of the rights of their children.