The International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Ghana is advocating appropriate enforcement of laws to tackle child labour in the small-scale mining sector.
National Programme Officer of ILO Ghana, Emmanuel Kwame Mensah, explained that, any enforcement strategy seen as harsh would antagonise perpetrators to engage the services of children on their mines secretly.
He said appropriate enforcement should entail regular engagement of the communities to sensitise them on the negative effects of the practice and how it could be addressed collectively.
He was speaking at a one-day workshop in Accra organised by the ILO in Ghana for the Minerals Commission on eradicating child labour in the small-scale mining sector on Thursday.
“This regular engagement is aimed at creating awareness and causing a change in the attitude of parents and communities on how they see child labour. It is also to re-orient people on poor cultural ideas that enforce beliefs that children must learn their parents’ trade to acquire the requisite experience and know-how to continue a particular business,” he stated.
Another means of ensuring appropriate enforcement, Mr Mensah stated, was the establishment of an effective monitoring system that involves miners and community members.
This, he said, allows “miners and community members to police themselves on child labour without the use of external enforcement team.”
Although it was currently difficult to estimate the number of children engaged in the menace, he stated that a recent project by ILO in Ghana in four districts in the Ashanti and Western Regions indicated that a staggering number of children have been engaged in various sectors including agriculture and mining.
He said, as far as these activities hampered the development, health and education of the children involved, it was a bad practice and must be stopped with the support of all in the community.
An integrated area-based approach that includes a system that addresses all forms of child labour in specific areas was necessary to accelerate the processes towards fighting the menace, Mr Mensah noted.
He said the child labour monitoring tool and child land free zone policy, introduced by the governments, were good initiatives that would help in driving change in how child labour was tackled.
Chris Anokye, Head of Small Scale and Industrial Minerals, Minerals Commission, said the collaboration with the ILO was to adequately equip officers with monitoring tools and strategies to ensure that laws and policies on child labour in mining were enforced and strengthened.
He said the Commission would work with local authorities to implement effective strategies to eliminate the problem and develop a model for child labour eradication in the sector.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
