Saltpond (C/R), June 24, GNA - The Child Labour Awareness Day has be= en launched in the Mfantseman Municipality with an appeal to donor partners to support the government to expand the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) to cover all primary schools in the country.

Miss Rachel Adjoa Amofa, Municipal Deputy Coordinating Director, who made the appeal, said due to financial constraints, the government was unable to extend the GSFP to all schools for the children to stay in the schools and learn instead of engaging in hazardous work to feed themselves. She appealed to parents to strive to provide their children with food and other basic needs to prevent them from indulging in child labour. The theme for the celebration was: 93Warning; Children in Hazardous W= ork =96 End Child Labour." It was organized by Parent and Child Foundation (PACF) in collaboratio= n with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Miss Amofa said Mfantseman happened to be the longest coastal district in Ghana and as such takes a fair share of the form of child labour associated with the coastal communities.

Mrs Elizabeth Danquah, Executive Director, PACF, said June 12 has been set aside by ILO as the World Day Against Child Labour in 2002 as a way to highlight the plight of children working under hazardous conditions. She said the day was intended to serve as catalyst for the growing worldwide movement against child labour as reflected in the huge number of ratifications of ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, and ILO Convention 138 on the Minimum Age for Employment. Mrs Danquah said the event this year was to support the National Plan of Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Ghana b= y 2015. She said the launch of the Day in Mfantseman was to facilitate collaboration between the Municipal Assembly and all stakeholders in elimination of child labour.

It was also to provide an early opportunity for the municipality's activities to follow up on the momentum generated. Mrs Danquah said the launch would be followed up with 93Plant-a-tree= " campaign to symbolize the importance of giving and nurturing life. She presented a book on the National Plan of Action to the Assembly to guide them in their programmes.

Mr Simeon Obotan Larbi, Mfantseman Municipal Director of Education, said the Central Region being the exist point of the Obnoxious Slave Trade should have made the people to swear never to encourage any form of slavery but expressed regret that they were still condoning slavery in the form of child abuse.

Mr Devine Opare, Central Regional Director of the Department of Children, said the school's shift system was encouraging child labour and expressed appreciation to the government for making efforts to abolish it. Mr Alex Kobena Afful, Assistant Registrar, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, pointed out that education was the only legacy which could be bequeath to children which no family member could seize and urged parents to invest in the education of their children. Mr Osborne Amonoo, Municipal Social Welfare Officer, attributed child labour to the outcome of broken homes and appealed to married couples to resist the temptation of divorce.

Nana Baa VII, Nyimfahen of Nkusukum Traditional Area, urged Ghanaians to produce the number of children they could conveniently cater for. Mr Alex Beecham, Presiding Member of the Assembly, urged Ghanaians to take children found loitering during school hours to their schools.