Ekon (C/R), June 12, GNA - The Cape Coast Municipal Chief Executive, Ms Mercy Arhin on Tuesday said the Assembly would deal harshly with irresponsible parents who fail to send their children of school going age to school. She said the Assembly had put in place Community Child Labour Committees to assist the Assembly's Child Labour Committee to work effectively.

Ms Arhin gave the warning in an address read for her at the celebration of World Child Labour Day at Ekon, near Cape Coast. She appealed to assembly members, traditional and religious authorities as well as individuals to endeavour to eliminate child labour in the Cape Coast Municipality, stressing "child labour is a serious problem if not solved would perpetually live with us and affect us as individuals or as a nation". Ms Arhin announced that with the support of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the child labour project office, the assembly was implementing the integrated child labour monitoring system project.

According to her the project was to among other things create strong institutional and socio-economic bases for dealing effectively with all forms of child labour to serve as a central tool for tracing child labour in the districts. The MCE said Charity Care Foundation, an NGO had been contracted to facilitate the identification and enrolment of children in school or to learn trades and that so far 70 of such children had been withdrawn and sent back to school, with three in vocational schools, while 27 were learning trades.

Ms Arhin expressed regret that in spite of the fee-free compulsory education and school feeding programme, which had gone a long way to reduce the burden on parents there were still large numbers of children of school going age in Cape Coast who were not in school. She called on all citizens of Oguaa both at home and abroad to assist in addressing the problem. 12 June 07