An educationist, Madam Barbara Abban of the Ghana Education Service (GES) office in Cape Coast, has appealed to Municipal, Metropolitan and District Assemblies as well as traditional rulers to implement and enforce bye-laws that would protect the rights of the child.
Madam Abban cited video centres, wake-keeping, internet caf�, pono-graphic material and some FM radio programmes like �woba ada anaa� as some of the disturbing trends in Ghanaian society that must be controlled.
Madam Abban was addressing the closing session of a three-day workshop on the topic �Gender Parity � the Girl Child Education� at Ajumako organised by the District Directorate of GES and sponsored by UNICEF.
It was attended by 62 participants drawn from the clergy, opinion leaders, traditional rulers, assembly members and religious leaders.
Problems discussed included divorce, separation, child labour, unemployment, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and ignorance of parents as to the importance of girl-child education.
Other areas covered included walking long distances to school, teacher attitude towards children, exposure to modernisation, the lack of teaching aides, equipment and role models.
Mr Philip Asamoah, District Coordinating Director for Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District, charged participants to go back to their
respective communities and ensure that what they had learnt was put into practice, with emphasis on all action plans, for the benefit of the people.
He appealed to participants to impress upon their subjects to rekindle their communal spirit, initiate more development projects while the assembly supplied the needed logistics for such projects as pit latrines for communities without toilet facilities.
Madam Doris Ahelegbe, Ajumako District Director of Health Services, and a resource person at the workshop, told participants that the right of the child starts as soon as pregnancy takes place.
She therefore appealed to fathers to take good care of their pregnant wives by providing quality food, health, shelter and clothing to mother and child until the child attains the age 18.
Madam Ahelegbe expressed displeasure about the rate at which people in the area are infected with HIV/AIDS, adding that two out of every ten
pregnant mothers in the area tested HIV-positive.