Safeguard of Children: Does Ghana have a Child Protection Policy?

There are many factors that contribute to the abuse of children within our society. Children protection is the key factor that protects any child from any form of abuse.

There are four known categories of the Child protection Policy in the Western society as clearly stated below.

? Emotional - abuse

? Physical - Abuse

? Sexual - Abuse

? Neglect

? These are the categories used in Britain by Health professionals, the police, and schools social services to safeguard the interest of children and families.

? The UNICEF, UN, W.H.O and all other children human rights I believe also go by these mentioned criteria.

? However, Do we as a nation have such a Policy to safe guard our children?

? Do we know what such a policy entails?

? Ghana appears not to have a National Service Framework for Children and Young people. Such a framework would change children lives for the better.

? Whilst in certain countries their vision is aimed towards a well targeted support to be available at all ages, stages of children and young people’s development, our main efforts are focused on building purposeful Palace for the seat of Government.

? Everyone knows that an early and effective intervention is crucial in helping children who may be going through the four categories of child protection.

? If we as a nation have no clue of what these category means, then whose needs are we addressing though?

? It was just recently that the Disability Bill was passed in Ghana. So all along what support have we as a nation offered parents with children of such responsibility? We have ridiculed, spat on this group of people and even stigmatised them. These are the most vulnerable in our society. What could we be proud of if we as a nation failed to help the vulnerable among us?

? Reflecting on articles in our daily newspapers and ghanaweb.com, it appears that there are an increasing number of children who are being defiled on daily.

? The police recently imprisoned a baby with the mother, surely if the police the police have knowledge of child protections issues they would have known that impact of their actions of the family unit in terms to child protection policy and regulations.

? Our schools systems, also have a built physical abuse of children by canning them as a form of instilling discipline. Is this the only option of disciplining children? As we claim we are progressing with modern times. Has we ever challenge this form of disciplining our children at all?

? One may observe that canning was done in most countries in the past. However, many developed countries have done research on the impact of canning of children and hence have since stopped this barbaric way of disciplining children.

? Have we as a nation interviewed our children who have gone through this barbaric way of punishment or done any longitudinal studies of them?

? Have we reviewed and monitored our pineal system in schools and home to justice our actions at all?

? Some parents displace their own unresolved frustrations of life by canning their children and even their spouses.

? Is there is multi- disciplinary training on child protection procedures for the nurses, the police, teachers, day care centres, lawyers, and any other institutions that cares for children?

? Our system may need to perhaps work on strategies of supporting children and families and I welcome the Domestic Violence bill that has been recently passed.

? Ghana certainly badly needs a child protection policy to protect and safeguard our children just like any other children in the rest of the world. Africa per say needs such a system to protect the vulnerable children and families.

? By having a child protection policy, churches, schools, the police, parents all have an integral part to play for your children to gain that self confidence, self esteem, and self worth in life.

? The judiciaries also need to attend such training to ensure they give children the protection they need.

? The core values aim our system need to ensure that the following are addressed:

? Provide services that are child, young and family friendly

? Protect children by timely action and perhaps careful identification and support of children who are vulnerable

? Work in partnership with children and families to take an active role in deciding how services are delivered.

? Work in close partnership with the community and the families and intervene earlier rather than later.

? Communicate effectively and provide well co-ordinated information so that people will be able to access key services in a simple and straight manner.

? Use the views of children, young people and their families to judge the effectiveness of services.

? Ghana needs to ensure that every organisation has the Child Protection Policy with annually updates for everyone.

? Unless this Child Protection Policy is being passed in Parliament, defilement, emotional & physical abuse and neglect of our children would be on going. It appears no one is working in partnership with each other therefore information are not being shared to help anyone.

? As a nation we may need to ensure that every institution have a Child Protection Procedure Document, Health and Safety Procedure Document, Food Handling Documents and of all child protection incident recorded. Such documentation could help relevant agencies dealing with children and families to share ideas and work together to safeguard our future workforce.