Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Sarah Adwoa Safo has outlined an ambitious strategy the Ministry will pursue to develop and ensure the safety of Ghanaian children.
According to the Minister, in addition to building libraries across all the 16 regions to provide some sort of sanctuary and safe space for children, the Ministry will among other things, reconstruct the Afua Sutherland Children’s Park into a modern recreational facility.
The Ministry, she added, also plans to build a shelter for abandoned children and amend the Children’s Act, Act 560 and the Juvenile Justice Act to strengthen the rights of children.
“We also plan to remove taxes on sanitary pads to make it affordable for young girls in schools, construct more shelters for children who have been trafficked, forced into bond labour and those who go into early childbirth.
“We also want to review the strategic framework on ending child marriages in Ghana,” Ms Adwoa Safo who is also the Member of Parliament for Dome/Kwabenya in the Greater Accra Region added.
The Minister disclosed these on Monday when school children from some selected basic and secondary schools in Accra and Tema interacted with her as part of activities to mark the AU Day of the African child.
The day will be officially observed on today Wednesday June, 16, 2021 with series of activities.
The children got the opportunity to ask the Minister a number of questions, ranging from topics such as corporal punishment in school and at home, strategies being implemented to curb streetism and Covid-19.
Quoting from the Bible, Ms Adwoa Safo stated that children are a gift from God hence the need to give glory and honour to Him.
According to her, the AU Agenda 2040 for children seeks to unlock the full potential for each child by fully protecting their rights and realizing these rights.
“You children will be the drive for our future on the continent and for the full progress and peaceful co-existent, which is also the core ideals of agenda 2063.
“We are proud to say Ghana has ratified the African Children’s Charter and also enacted the Children’s Act. All these we have also ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),” she stated.
Schools that were represented at the event included SOS international, Tema; True Love School, East Legon; Forces Senior High and Technical School, Burma Camp; Dome-Kwabenya Community SHS; Living Star School and Ghana National College among others.
The “Day of the African Child” (DAC) is observed on 16th June, to mark the 1976 students’ uprising against an apartheid skewed education in Soweto, South Africa.
This year’s localized theme is- “Mainstreaming Agenda 2040 into the National Development Framework”.
It is line with the continental theme- “30 years after the adoption of the Charter: accelerate implementation of Agenda 2040 for an Africa fit for children “Agenda 2040: Fostering an Africa fit for children” is the framework to guide child protection interventions in the Africa region.
