Ho, June 26, GNA - The Volta Region is the lead region in the practice of child labour, a Ghana Child Labour survey has indicated. It said 33.2 percent of children engaged in child labour in the country are in the region and most of these children are found in the agriculture, mining, fishing and kente-weaving sectors.

Mr. Edwin Gamadeku, Volta Regional Director, Department of Children, said this at the regional celebration of 2008 African Union Day of the African Child in Ho on Thursday.

The day, instituted by the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in July, 1990 to commemorate the 1976 massacre of school children in Soweto in South Africa, seeks to bring into focus issues affecting the effective development and well being of children in Africa. It was on the theme "Right to Participation - Let Children be seen and heard".

Mr. Gamadeku said the Department of Children and other stakeholders were working assiduously to bring to the barest minimum child labour and related issues in the region. He said children must be given the opportunity to be heard and seen and that their views must be given the due weight in any judicial administrative proceedings affecting them. Mr. Peter Norvor, Volta Regional Deputy Director of Department of Social Welfare, Programmes and Child Rights who chaired the function, said the African traditional system denied children their rights and that "it is now time for society to respect the rights of children". A debate organised by the Department on the topic "Children are too young to be seen and heard" as part of the day was won by Ho Methodist Junior High School.