She said there was the need for the stakeholders in the fight against child labour, human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery to cooperate and scale up their efforts as the UN had declared 2021 as the year of Elimination of Child Labour and to meet the Target 8.7 by 2025.

Ms Agyemang made the call at a national strategic workshop organised by the Ministry to draw a roadmap towards achieving the Target and to announce the formation of Ghana Alliance 8.7 to join the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Alliance 8.7 Pathfinder Country Status.

The workshop drew representatives from government organisations, religious bodies, trade unions, civil society organisations, media persons, social partners, employers' associations, among others.  

The objectives of the workshop was to identify and bring all interested Alliance 8.7 partners together to deliberate on how to accelerate action towards attaining SDG Target 8.7; and to assess the progress made by Ghana on SDG Target 8.7.

The rest are to identify implementation gaps towards the attainment of the Target; develop a work plan with measurable targets; and agree on set of indicators to review the Alliance 8.7 process.

The expectation of the workshop was for stakeholders to have a clear understanding of national priorities to achieve the target, their roles and responsibilities of the next steps.

Others are the roadmap 2021-2025, identifying main priorities, areas of intervention, and strategic outcomes, with annual benchmarks and resources required (existing resources and eventual resource gaps, and implementation gaps on SDG 8.7 identified.

Ms Agyemang who is the Ghana's Miss Alliance 8.7 said despite the good works being done by stakeholders to achieve the Target 8.7, the current pace was slow hence the formation of the Alliance to coordinate activities to accelerate action.

She said the global Alliance 8.7 Pathfinder was committed to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour, in accordance with Target 8.7 of the 2030 Agenda for SDG.

In September 2012, all UN member States adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals consisting of 17 interrelated goals and 169 associated targets to promote economic, social and environmental development.

Target 8.7 requires all countries to "Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including; recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms."