The review of the laws, which include the Children’s Act, the Juvenile Justice Act and other related laws, comes in the wake of the alleged defilement of a four-year-old girl by a juvenile.

Organised by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, with support from the United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) and funded by the Canadian government, the meeting brought together stakeholders, including child rights activists, development partners, traditional leaders, educationists and some children.

The acting Country Representative, UNICEF, Ms Rushnan Murtaza, at the opening of the meeting said Ghana was ranked high on the international scene as having been the first to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and being a signatory to many international and regional conventions, protocols and treaties on child protection.

She said despite this achievement, the country still had the highest rate of physical abuse of children.

She disclosed that about 20 per cent of children in Ghana were currently facing abuse of various forms, adding that there was a disconnect between the laws and practices.

“Children are victims of the society and a system that have failed them,” she added.

Gaps in laws

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ms Otiko Afisah Djaba, in an address said over the years of the implementation of the Child and Family Welfare Policy and the Justice for Children Policy, it had been realised that there were some gaps in the laws which needed to be reviewed.

She said there were indications that the laws had not been designed to be culturally appropriate and sustainable within existing structures and available resources.

“Again, some of the laws have not taken into consideration the emerging child protection issues such as surrogacy, adoption and child trafficking, which means that there is total legislative silence on these emerging issues,” she added.

She proposed a bottom-up approach to solving the issue of child abuse in the country, saying most people who were poor became vulnerable to trafficking; and, therefore, called for education for parents and their children in rural communities.

She also proposed stiffer punishments for perpetrators of child abuse, saying sanctions should be a deterrent to others.

A Justice of the Supreme Court, Mrs Justice Sophia Adinyira, in a comment called for a collaborative approach between public authorities, non-governmental agencies and families in responding to child abuse and neglect and in the provision of social services.

A Legal Consultant, Mrs Sheila Minkah-Premo, called for the strengthening of institutions, especially the Birth and Death Registry to ensure that all children were registered at birth, else, she said, there would continue to be ineffectiveness in the system.

A child rights activist, Mrs Susane Sabaah, in a submission also said child neglect by most parents was the foundation of most of the problems the country was facing in the area of child abuse and called for the laws to work.

Related development

In a related development, the Gender minister said the defilement of any child was horrifying, traumatic and unacceptable.