Ho, Feb. 22, GNA - Majority of porters and truck pushers in the Ho Central Market on Thursday refused to attend a one-day workshop organized by the Department of Social Welfare in collaboration with the Ghana National Commission on Children (GNCC) to sensitize them on the Domestic Violence Bill.

Only a handful of them participated in the workshop as most of them were seen off-loading tomatoes from vehicles prompting Mr Edwin Gamadeku, the Volta Regional Director of the Department of Children, to call on the leadership of the porters and truck pushers to educate them on the importance of the workshop.

The workshop was on the theme "Streetism and Child Labour: its effects on the child, family, community and the economy."

The Ho Municipal Assembly provided logistics for the workshop. Assistant Superintendent of Police Rita Narh, Volta Regional Coordinator of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service, said the passage of the Domestic Violence Bill by Parliament did not mean parents should not discipline their children. She said the bill was to minimize domestic violence was not intended to curtail control of parents over their children.

"It is not meant to encourage wives to rebel against their husbands. It is to protect the husband, the wife and the child." Ms Narh said parents who shirk their parental responsibilities were compounding the menace of streetism, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and other vices in society.

Mr. Gamadeku, appealed to the porters and truck pushers to strive to improve upon their living conditions.

He advised them to do away with alcoholism, drug abuse and all vices that tend to affect their health in the future.