The World Day Against Child Labour was first instituted in 2002 by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to raise awareness of the plight of children engaged in child labour and to rally global support for its prevention.

This year’s celebration had the theme, ‘Social Justice for All. End Child Labour,” Mr. Joseph Whittal, CHRAJ Commissioner, stated in a document to the Ghana News Agency in Tema to mark the day.

He said the theme aimed to highlight the link between social justice and child labour; the need to ensure children everywhere were given a fair opportunity of education and grow into adults with decent income and stable employment.

“There is an urgent need to prevent the occurrence of child labour, as it deprives affected children, especially from poor households, of the equal opportunity of education for a better future and to prevent intergenerational poverty.

Mr Whittal encouraged the government to evaluate and review social protection policies and especially increase resource allocation to aid in their effective implementation in alleviating poverty and reducing cost opportunities to primary and secondary school enrolment and retention.

“This will ensure all children, especially from households with limited or declining household incomes, the equal opportunity to access quality education and be protected from physical and psychological abuse,” he said.

In addition, CHRAJ calls on the government and relevant ministries, departments, and agencies to work assiduously towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 target to eliminate the worst forms of child labour.

These include the recruitment and use of child soldiers, as well as ending all forms of child labour by 2025.

He also urged the government to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography to help protect children from commercial sexual exploitation; which is categorised as the worst form of child labour.

Mr Whittal explained that globally, an estimated 160 million children are engaged in child labour, that is one in every ten children, stressing the situation in sub-Saharan Africa is even dire.

“Every one in five children is in child labour with an absolute number of 72 million children, followed by the Asia and Pacific region with 62 million children engaged in one form of child labour or the other.

“In Ghana, 21 percent of children aged 5 to 17 years which translates to approximately 1.9 million children are child labourers. Out of this number, 14 percent are engaged in hazardous labour.