AU Day Of The African Child Marked With A Resolve To Protect Children

Ghana’s Sirigu and South Africa’s Soweto share one depressing history in common. They both saw guiltless children suffer cold-blooded killings at the hands of those who ought to have protected them. Today, the two places are meeting on a common ground: to remember the slain sinless souls, years after the tears. 

Ghana has marked this year’s African Union (AU) Day of the African Child with a strong resolve to protect children from all forms of abuse.

The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, told a gathering at Sirigu in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region that “Government will demonstrate its lead role in ensuring that the rights of our children are respected, promoted and protected.”

Sirigu was chosen for this year’s celebration for officially putting an end to branding children born with deformities or amid family misfortunes as “spirit children” and killing them. The Day is celebrated across Africa every year since hundreds of schoolchildren in South Africa’s Soweto were gunned down on a street for demanding their right to quality education. The celebration was themed: “Eliminating Harmful Social and Cultural Practices affecting Children: Our Collective Responsibility.”

Whilst assuring the ceremony gathering of the commitment of the Ministry to supporting the people of Sirigu and all other communities in their fight against practices that are harmful to children, the Minister also called on stakeholders— parents, caregivers, legislators and Civil Society Organisations among others— to support the Ministry in the fight.

“Other negative practices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which seeks to reduce pre-marital and extra-marital sex among girls results in making them vulnerable to infections, have difficulty at birth, bleed and subsequently die. Child betrothal and early marriages also fall within this category. The effects of these practices are frightening. Forced marriages alone create a cycle of poverty, increased illiteracy rate, especially among girls and pushes women further down the social ladder and reinforces their status as submissive, especially in patriarchal societies,” she added. 

The Minister commended Afrikids Ghana, a child rights organisation based in Bolgatanga, for playing a key role in bringing years of infanticide at Sirigu to an end. She also congratulated ace investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, “for bringing the attention of the larger Ghanaian public to the practice for a more holistic solution.”  

The Upper East Regional Minister, Alhaji Limuna Mohammed-Muniru, in a speech read on his behalf by his deputy, Mr. Daniel .A. Syme, urged the assemblies to enact bye-laws that are simple enough to understand by everybody in the community. “This would give meaning to the Acts that have been passed by government to protect these children,” he explained. 

The District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area, Mr. Thomas Adda Dalu, on his part asked the youths to take advantage of the policies and programmes that government had put in place to alleviate poverty. 

“Packages such as DASA, Youth in ICT, LESDEP, YESDEP, Northern Shared Growth and Development and the block farming support, to mention but just a few are meant to alleviate the suffering of our teaming masses. There is the need for our youth to take advantage of the packages to better up their lots,” said the DCE.

E.F. Adeti/Savannahnews