Child labour rampant in Ghana
04/10/2005 14:07  - (SA)  

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Ghana eradicating child labour Children fight for rights Bid to end child labour Crackdown on child labour

Accra - Officials and parents in Ghana have been urged to combat child labour as figures show that more than one million children in the country are working, reports the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday.

Emmanuel Otoo of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) said the majority of the children were under 13 years of age and attributed the rise in child labour to parental neglect.

He said: "More than 91% of parents of child labourers are alive, which indicates that neglect of parental responsibility is a major cause of child labour."

Otoo said the children were engaged in areas such as stone cracking, fishing, street hawking, farming, forestry and domestic work, with some even forced to sell drugs or work as prostitutes.

According to Otoo, an estimated 242 000 of the children were engaged in "hazardous" work.

He noted that most of the child labour situations in Ghana were linked to internal trafficking with the worst forms dominant in the rural areas.

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