By Rachel Kakraba
Cocoa sector players have met in Accra to discuss interoperability of systems in the sector to help solve the problem of child labour. The move seeks to harmonize activities and ensure instant access to reliable data on the menace. This came up at a partnership meeting, organized by the International Cocoa Initiative, ICI, which drew partners from Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana as well as diplomatic organizations.
Speaking to GBC NEWS, ICI Country Director Mike Arthur, said that Ghana has developed performance indicators that will soon be rolled out to track the number of people engaged in child labour.
“We want to look at children who have received support, we want to look at children who are in school and other indicators. Ghana has been able to develop this compendium of indicators, which is like a Bible, on child labor in Ghana, explaining the basic concepts of child labor”
He hinted that Ghana is developing the Child Labour Monitoring System to better tell the story of child labour and also direct policies.
“If these systems are operational, we will be able to see the number of children who are in child labour, and then we are able to direct our policies towards what to do in order to help those who are in child labour and what support is needed in various municipalities”
Mr. Arthur, said Child labour is a complex and dynamic issue, which requires constant reviews of frameworks to effectively address.
“We keep on looking for what is exactly child labour and that is why Ghana has what we call the hazardous activities. This framework is also being revised, and when we have a revised framework, it’ll help us because maybe, we are counting some activities as hazardous when perhaps they’re not supposed to be, classified as hazardous activities”
Adding on, “when we have gotten these hazardous activities right we’ll be able to determine how far we have to go, in order to get to the point of elimination of child labour because it is a dynamic issue”
Mr. Arthur was hopeful countries will in the near future have common indicators which would be used for child labour reporting.
