Mr. Paul Semeh, Chief Executive Director, Street Children Empowerment Foundation (SCEF), a non governmental organization, has called for the urgent need to safeguard, protect and rescue children engaged in hazardous work.
He said many children in the country were involved in various hazardous work on daily bases that needed loud voices and interventions to eliminate the scourge.
Mr. Semeh was addressing a stakeholders’ engagement and workshop held in Accra on child safeguarding and protection and its implications.
”We know that most of the people involved in these hazardous work are mostly street children, the Kayaies but unfortunately, our leaders seems to be quiet and there has not been a loud voice to rescue or take actions, ” he said.
The workshop brought together key stakeholders such as leaders of Head Porters Associations and other local community leaders. Topics treated include, Children in hazardous work (CHaW) and Children in Street Situation, How to develop an action plan on working collaboratively with other stakeholders to reduce the influx of street children engaging in hazardous work.
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He said opinion leaders had roles to play in reducing the number of children involved in hazardous work, as well as promoting education among vulnerable population fraught with many occupational and environmental health challenges, adding, if stakeholders worked together, children involved in hazardous activities would be rescued.
Mr.Anthony Kojo Bosomtwe, Project officer, SCEF for Children in Hazardous Work ‘CHAW’ project, said the Organisation had developed a five-year strategic project plan to rescue 500 children and would ensure that children acquired quality and good education by the year 2025.
He added that the CHAW project sought to create an enabling environment where children in street situation or vulnerable children had access to basic education.
He urged stakeholders to strengthen the partnership and join forces with the organisation to help identify needy children in their societies and also refer cases relating to abuse for immediate response and rescue.
Mr Bosomtwe said the Organisation ran on godparentship programmes with educational support and appealed for more partnership and support from the general public, adding that the national economy could grow if the young were being supported.
Mr Mohammed Salifu, Chairman, Head Porters Association, said the mere sight of children involved in hazardous work was worrying and should be a great concern and responsibility of government, parents, opinion leaders to come together and find a solution to it.
“We mostly pretend even though we know the dangers associated with people engaged in such activities but we tend to hide issues due to our political systems, leaving the vulnerable to their own fate which is not fair as a nation, “he said.
He said the Association work to protect the well-being of Kayaye, providing education to create awareness on issues that might endanger their lives but that was not enough, saying most of the situations were usually beyond their control.
Mr Salifu appealed to government to make policies that would help benefit the vulnerable in society.
