ActionAid Ghana at the weekend organised a day’s workshop for artisans and heads of departments in Tamale on safe and decent work practices and labour laws to ensure decent work for young women.

The day’s workshop under the Young Urban Women project brought together the Ghana Dressmakers and Tailors Association, Ghana Hairdressers and Beauticians Association, Smock and Local cloth weavers, and Ghana Association of Hoteliers.

Others include state agencies such as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, National Commission on Civic Education, Department of Gender, National Youth Authority and the Labour Department who were sensitised and shared information about the laws that govern workers on decent work.

Miss Melody Azinim, Project Officer for the Young Urban Women project said the focus of the workshop was on challenges young women face in accessing decent work such as lack of employable skills and to seek measures of addressing them.

She said some of the young women have not been to school while others have been victims of school dropouts and needed education to address the problems they face at work places.

She said: “Some young women also remain at home caring for the sick, elderly and children and undertaking other household chores, which limit the time they have to engage in income generating activities.”

She said ActionAid Ghana is implementing a project in the peri-urban areas of Tamale and Accra called the Young Urban Women: Life choices and Livelihood, aimed at ensuring that some 2,000 young urban women living in poverty would have greater dignity through more economic independence and control over their bodies.

Miss Azinim said when young urban women have control over their bodies they would be brave enough to project their voices to be heard and recognised in international forums and expressed the hope that the workshop would help change a lot of things.

She said ActionAid is advancing through the Young Urban Women Project to support the International Labour Organisation’s decent work concept that ensures that workers rights especially young women are respected.

She said young women need to know the labour laws so that they are not sexually harassed and should be paid wages that correspond to the minimum wage and ensure that new mothers enjoy their maternity leave without risk of losing their jobs.

Hajia Alima Mahama, a former Women and Children’s Affairs Minister, who facilitated the workshop advised young women to read employment contracts carefully before signing because all individuals have rights, including the right to decent work.

The workshop discussed challenges young women face in accessing Decent Work; Women’s Rights at the Work Place; Human Rights; Law on Employment; Employment Contracts, the Labour Act, among others.

Participants from the informal sector associations expressed happiness about the training, which made them to understand that workers’ rights apply to all sectors