BEKWAI MARKS WORLD CHILD LABOUR DAY (PAGE 40)

THE Bekwai Municipality has celebrated the World Child Labour Day at Dotom with a call on parents to put value on the education of their children.
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Noah Asante-Manu, who made the call in a speech read on his behalf at the ceremony, said the provision of quality education for the children would guarantee them a better future for the benefit of themselves, their families, communities and the nation at large.
Consequently, he warned that the authorities would not take kindly to parents who shirked their responsibilities in the upbringing of their children.
Mr Asante-Manu also cautioned parents against using their children as farmhands on cocoa farms.
He stated that the government was determined to prevent any such activity in cocoa-growing areas because the international community had spoken against it.
The MCE promised that the assembly would continue to come up with policies and programmes to help develop the potential of children.
Speaking on the topic: “The concept of child labour and its consequences”, an officer of the Statistical Service, Mr Kofi Worae Kusi, noted that children who were made to overwork the body had difficulty in learning.
He said the fact that the child could accompany the parents to the farm did not mean they could do every other work on the farm.
The Municipal Co-operative Officer, Mr Yaw Offe, who spoke on the topic: “The child, the root of the nation“, said no nation could develop if it neglected its children; that was why Ghana as a nation had come out with various laws to protect the interest of children.
Mr Offe said even though the government was doing its part, parents also had a big responsibility to honour their obligations to their children in order to prepare the children for a better adult life.
He stressed the need for girls to be educated, adding that many parents in the municipality did not attach importance to girls’ education and said there must be a change to it.
The Bekwai Municipal Social Welfare Officer, Mr Maxwell Kuffuor, said his outfit was determined to play its co-ordinating role effectively in the programme to check child labour on cocoa farms.
He commended the people of Dotom for their massive turnout at the function and urged them to put what they had learnt into practice.