(GNA Feature) By W. Ray Ankomah

Accra, Nov 4, GNA - Thirteen-year-old Kwasi Boadu stood in the middle of his father's farm confused and angry at himself for his inability to identify the big tree where his father had dumped a heap of cocoyam he was to collect home for the family's supper.

Opanin Yaw Mensah, a rich and accomplished farmer, had told Boadu to collect the cocoyam from under a big 'krupia' tree at the fringes of his maize farm.

Yes, he remembered the name 'krupia'. He had heard his father repeat the name of that hardy tree three times but was at pains to identify which of the numerous trees surrounding him went by that name. Even if he knew the names of the birds chirping above his head and they could talk, by what name was he going to call any of them? Like a fish out of water, Boadu stood there helpless until one of his elder brothers, Kwame Ansah, a successful farmer, arrived and asked of his mission on the farm.

Ansah laughed mockingly at his hapless brother after listening to his story and dragged him impatiently by the collar of his neatly ironed and stainless shirt to a shady but bulky tree where he saw the heap of cocoyam and shamefully collected them home.

Boadu's predicament is typical of the village child who did not have the opportunity to experience village life before his sister took him away to attend school in Accra.

He did not stay in the village long enough to be conversant with farming and things of his environment. He had not grown up long enough to enable him to learn the art of weeding, raising yam mounds or sowing maize. He drew a blank when

Children uprooted from their villages to the cities lose touch with the culture and environment in their communities. Not only that. They lose the 'village tutorials', considered to be the bedrock of chid upbringing. The typical village child upbringing places emphasis on the dignity of labour and hard work, respect for the elderly, traditions and cultures, strong extended family bonds, evening story-telling, and communal lifestyle. It also emphasizes tolerance, patience, good moral behaviour and infuses in the child the fear of God, which is he beginning of wisdom. These values are greatly cherished in the typical small Ghanaian community where everyone knows everyone and where no family wants its image tarnished by the bad or wayward behaviour of any single member. The properly trained rural child thus abhors laziness and disrespect for the elderly and moral turpitude due to the repercussions these might bring onto the entire family.

The rural child undergoes training in the father's or mother's profession at an early age of between eight and 12 years. Of course, every occupation or vocation has its hazards. One cannot therefore rule out a few ones like bee and wasp stings, getting one's feet perforated by creeping thorns, snake bites or occasional cuts from one's own cutlass and being soaked by rain. Farming is a difficult but respected and dignified vocation garnered from many years of practical experience and hard work. It is, therefore, wrong to talk of children assisting their parents on their cocoa and other cash crop farms as being engaged in the worst form of child labour. It is normal practice that children take part in farm work as a matter of routine to expose them to various farming and weeding techniques on usually Saturdays or holiday periods.

Growing urbanization and financial pressures are gradually weaning the Ghanaian child, defined under the Children's Act (1998) as "a person below the age of eighteen years", away from the rural communities into the cities and urban centres in search of work.

They end up on the streets to engage in menial work, and street selling, resulting in streetism, growth of sprawling shanties and environmental degradation.

Very hard pressed parents give out their children to distant relations or outright strangers for ludicrous sums of money and allow them to be trafficked outside the country to engage in hazardous jobs and prostitution.

Dignified Child Labour

The Act prohibits "exploitative child labour" or any form of labour that "deprives a child of its health, education or development" and puts the minimum age for which a child shall be admitted to employment as 15 years and its engagement in light work at 13 years".

However, it allows for the engagement of the child in hazardous work at 18 years.

In our traditional setting, however, the child is subjected to dignified form of labour at an earlier age of say 10 years or even lower to learn a few rudiments of the family's vocation but usually under very close supervision.

Hazardous Work!

The Children's Act defines hazardous work as one that 'poses danger to the health, safety or morals of a person'.

It cites 'going to sea, mining and quarrying, porterage of heavy loads, manufacturing industries where chemicals are produced or used, work in places where machines are used.

It also includes work in places such as bars, hotels and places of entertainment where a person may be exposed to immoral behaviour'. But at what point does the fisherman's son learn fishing to enable him to take up the vocation of his father or at what age does he go on apprenticeship?

The Act specifies that "the minimum age at which a child may commence an apprenticeship with a craftsman is 15 years or after completion of basic education".

Apprenticeship, of course, goes with specific conditions to guarantee the well-being of the child under his or her care. These relate, in part, to provision of food, safe and healthy environment, protection of his or her interest and responsibility for his or her moral training.

But are craftsmen and women conforming to these guidelines, rules and obligations; are the bodies entrusted with oversight responsibilities able to carry out their functions?

For example, are our child care homes able to abide strictly by the rules governing their operations to ensure maximum comfort for these children? Not only that! There are several cases whereby even close relations maltreat children under their care

Deviations

There are countless numbers of deviations in child care and upbringing, which fall under the category of the worst forms of child labour. There are television footages of children working under harsh conditions in factories or other unsuitable locations in many parts of the world.

There also stories of children sold to unknown or strange persons who subject them to maltreatment and virtual slavery or even prostitution, severe and cruel beatings and other inhuman treatment.

The challenges for fighting the worst forms of child labour are real, and enforcement of child labour laws is said to be weak across the globe as a result of lack of resources and corruption.

An AFP report issued last August confirms this challenge and cites a United States Labour Department study as saying: "Enforcement efforts were chronically hindered by insufficient resources" and that many children continue to be involved in "dangerous and demeaning work that robs them of their childhood and, often, their future".

The report submitted to the US Congress blames this situation on poor salaries and inadequate training for child labour inspectors. According to the report, in many of the 141 countries and territories reviewed, "there is a broad array of efforts underway to eliminate the worst forms of child labour".

Among countries cited for increased enforcement mechanisms in child trafficking are Ghana, Jamaica, Bolivia, Guinea, Malawi and Sierra Leone.

Another AFP report on Egypt reveals the stark realities of child labour and its inevitability in some societies, quoting the United Nations agency UNICEF(UN Children's Fund) as estimating that 2.7 million children between the ages of six and 14 in Egypt work.

"According to official statistics, a third of Egypt's 80 million population is below the age of 15 and Non-governmental Organizations say some 10 per cent of this population are forced to work, often in difficult conditions.

"In a country where 20 per cent live below the poverty line and another 20 per cent just above it, the practice of making children work is a bleak necessity and a reality that hardly causes a blink for most," it adds. The report states again that though Egypt is a signatory to the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child, it has "largely been ignored despite occasional government efforts to revive its fight against child labour". The danger of children working under such difficult conditions is their "vulnerability to protection rackets, prostitution and AIDS". In Ghana, there is a growing phenomenon of child mothers emanating from head porters (kayayee) who are raped and impregnated by their attackers in a community of street dwellers selling or purporting to sell all kinds of items.

If we cannot prevent children from working under hazardous conditions to eke out a living, then we must create a congenial environment to improve their lot.

In spite of the loud noise we are all making about these issues, there is also the other side of the coin where some few affluent persons subject house-helps to virtual slavery.

Human rights activists, non-governmental organizations, Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs, National Commission for Children and the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service have a lot more work to do to unearth the various forms of undignified or hazardous labour we all crave to eliminate from society. But they must be trained and well resourced to enable Ghana to abide by the international conventions to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. Perhaps Ghana must embrace the village tutoring, which infuses in children the dignity and decency of labour and not wrongly label children assisting their parents on their farms as engaging in 'the worst form of child labour'.