Budget GH₵300M for child protection

In addition, they demanded that the allocations be fully disbursed in each year starting 2020.
Key areas where the money should be channeled to projects geared towards prevention of child marriages, birth registration, and alternative care, justice for children, child sexual abuse and reproductive health.
Their concerns were contained in a communiqué issued by the NGOs at the 2019 Ghana NGO Forum under the theme ‘Preventing Child Neglect: Whose Responsibility.’
The forum was attended by over 800 participants from 377 NGOs and other stakeholders in the child rights space in Ghana.
According to them, child protection allocations were critically important as they address the needs of the most vulnerable children in Ghana.
The Forum further stressed that the economic benefits of preventing abuse or addressing existing abuse is substantial.
Ghana’s inability to fully implement policies
This call comes on the back of Ghana’s inability to fully comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) even though Ghana was the first country to sign the convention in 1990, almost 30 years ago.
The Ghana NGO forum further indicated that the Government of Ghana needed to do more for the vulnerable children by prioritizing budgetary allocations in the social sectors, ensuring implementation of the economic, social and cultural rights of children as well as improve health- care services and education.
Apart from the CRC which Ghana is struggling to fully comply with, the NGOs pointed to the lack of full and effective implementation of well-crafted policies and plans for the protection of Ghana’s children as another critical concern.
Among the policies Ghana has adopted but yet to fully implement include, Child and Family Welfare Policy (2014), Justice for Children Policy (2015), National Gender Policy (2015), Five Year Strategic Plan to prevent Adolescent Pregnancies (2016-2020) and National Strategic Framework on Ending Child Marriage (2017-2018) among others.
In their communiqué, the Ghana NGO Forum published their recent data conducted during a 2018 situational analysis of children in Ghana which sampled 5,024 children indicated that about 51.2% of the children sampled did not have birth certificates.
Mr Michael Abiaw, a Senior Programme Officer at the Department of Children, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection who shared highlights from the study noted that on the issue of child rights, majority of Ghanaian children (57.7%) did not know about their rights as children.
67.1% don’t know where to report abuse
“Furthermore, it was observed that there was a general misconception among adults about the rights of children. Interestingly, a staggering 67.1% of the children indicated that they did not know where to report incidences of abusein their communities” he added.
34.8% of children seek reproductive health education on internet
On the matter of reproductive health education, 34.8% young adults resorted to the internet as their major source of information.
82.8% express inadequate knowledge about laws
According to the report, 82.8% of the respondents expressed inadequate knowledge about the laws that protect children from early sex, marriage and their right to refuse betrothals.
Preventing child neglect
Participants at the Ghana NGO Forum deliberated on the role of NGOs, the community and the state in preventing child neglect.
Madam Cynthia Morrison, Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, noted that it was everyone’s responsibility – the government, parents and the community to provide adequate healthcare, clothing, shelter and education for children, adding that failure to provide that amounted to child neglect.
She noted that government with funding from UNICEF and in collaboration with other partners has strengthened Ghana’s child protection system by formulating a Child and Family Welfare Policy (CFWP) which places the child at the centre of the family and the community.
The Forum was organized as one of the main activities under a two-year European Union funded project, “Promoting and Protecting Child Rights in Ghana”.
The project is being implemented by OAfrica, a non-governmental organization, in collaboration with the Department of Children.

Source: Gloria KYEREMEH, Accrathefinderonline.com