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Thirty journalists from cocoa-growing regions across the country have undergone capacity-building at Assin Fosu in the Central Region towards reducing the incidence of child labour in cocoa-growing areas.
The participating journalists were from the Central, Oti, Ashanti, Greater Accra and Western North regions.
The workshop, which was organised by the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), was a sequel to an earlier one held in Kumasi, to further expose the journalists to the Landscape and Referral Project (LRP) targeted at improving children's labour issues in the cocoa value chain.
It also sought to create broader coordination among various relevant agencies responsible for child care and protection.
The LRP is being implemented in the Assin North, Assin Central and Assin South districts of the Central Region and Asunafo North in the Ahafo Region.
A Deputy Director of Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, Peter Nana Antwi, took the participants through standard operating procedures and avenues for addressing child labour issues in the country.
He stated that while children were by law allowed to support parents and to learn to undertake some form of activities, this must not negatively impact their health, education and well-being.
Mr Antwi indicated that laws such as the Children's Act and the constitution had sections that protected the well-being of children, saying that many perpetrators were not aware of such laws.
He said any activity that could be injurious to a child, as well as the worse forms of child labour in all sectors such as fishing and cracking stones at the quarry site, among others, were against the law, stressing that there was the need for education, especially by media personnel, to deter offenders and protect the children.
He said a framework of action for the elimination of the worse forms of child labour in the cocoa sector for Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire was in the offing for 2024-2029 and urged journalists to help ensure that the parties worked to uphold the tenets of that framework, which was likely to be ready for implementation this year.
He called for strengthened monitoring systems on the part of both governmental and non-governmental child protection agencies involved in social services and social protection and access to education to help reduce child labour, especially in cocoa-growing areas.
The Landscape Project and Partner Support Manager of the ICI, Isadore Armah, said the project was committed to bringing all relevant agencies together in the communities towards mitigating the incidence of child labour in cocoa-growing areas.
A Chief Editor of Ghana News Agency, George-Ramsey Banamba, urged the journalists to build networks towards writing impactful stories to help reduce the incidence of child labour.
Representatives of governmental institutions partnering the ICI on the landscape and referral project including the Ghana Education Service, National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) also took turns to address participants calling for closer collaboration and engagement for the success of the project.
