The training, which included the use of International Labour Organisation's (ILO) indicators on forced labour to address the problem in Ghana, seeks to expose journalists to laws that will help define child labour and forced labour.

Organised by the Global March Africa on Child Labour, with technical and financial support from Forced Labour Indicators Project (FLIP) Veritè and the United States Department of Labour, the programme brought together Social Mobilisation Partners on Child Labour (SOMOPAC), to empower them in their field of work.

The social mobilisation partners on child labour, are Ghanaian journalists who are being trained to focus on reporting on child labour and forced labour in Ghana.

The training, under FLIP, will also enable journalists to be equipped for enhanced advocacy, and to sharpen their skills for accurate reporting to reduce child labour.

In a presentation, the Deputy General Secretary for the General Agricultural Workers' Union (GAWU), Andrews Addoquaye Tagoe, who is also the Regional Co-ordinator for the Global March Africa on Child Labour, said the basic factor had to do with the definitions of child labour and forced labour.

He said child labour or forced labour could not be defined by using emotions or just by looking at the people involved in it.

The definitions, according to him, are by laws, routed in international and national conventions.

Mr Tagoe noted that parental consent was key in terms of the definition of child labour.

That, according to him, would consider the type of work that the child was doing, whether on the farm, washing, or household chores.

On forced labour, he indicated that key among the considerations for the definitions was freedom of the individual to leave the work voluntarily.

"If one cannot work and freely leave the work voluntarily, then that can be considered as forced labour,” Mr Tagoe reiterated.

Deep insights

The Global Programme Director of FLIP Veritè's, Josephine Dadzie, who was a facilitator, urged the media to be armed with deep insights into forced labour and to use the plethora of resources available, especially on the FLIP website, to enhance their knowledge.

She indicated that the worst form of child labour was often practised on the farms, in the fishing industry, quarry sites, trading centres, and homes, adding that media reports, to a very large extent, informed policy direction.

Therefore, if issues of forced labour were not well investigated before being put out in the public domain, chances were that the problem would not be addressed.

Ms Dadzie noted that journalists needed to have a fair knowledge of indicators of forced labour.

Some of which include intimidation and threats, excessive working overtime, restriction of movement, withholding of wages, retention of identification documents, physical and sexual violence, poor living condition, abuse of vulnerability, debt bondage, deception and management system failure.

That, Ms Dadzie said, would help journalists handling a forced labour case not to just report on the matter, but probe further and farther above the surface.