Childhood on the Highway: Ghana's Silent Emergency That Nobody Wants to Confront

Every day across Ghana's major highways, traffic intersections, markets, and busy commercial centers, thousands of children wake up to a reality that no child should ever experience. While many children prepare for school, these young boys and girls are forced to navigate speeding vehicles, harsh weather, hunger, exploitation, and uncertainty.

They sell sachet water, fruits, biscuits, and household items. Some beg. Some carry loads heavier than their bodies can handle. Others simply wander through traffic in search of survival.

Yet perhaps the most disturbing question is not why these children are on the streets.

The real question is: How did we become a society that accepts this as normal?

Where Are Their Parents?
This is often the first question many citizens ask.

The answer, however, is not always simple.

Some parents are trapped in extreme poverty and see street trading as a means of family survival. Others live in rural communities and send children to cities under the care of relatives who eventually push them onto the streets. Some children are orphans. Others come from broken homes where neglect, abuse, or abandonment have become their daily reality.

But regardless of the circumstances, one difficult question remains:

At what point does poverty stop being an excuse and become a national emergency requiring intervention?

If a child spends more time dodging vehicles than attending school, who bears responsibility?

Where Is the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection?

The Ministry exists to promote the welfare, protection, and development of vulnerable children.

Yet the visible presence of children on highways raises uncomfortable questions.

Are current interventions sufficient?
Are child protection systems reaching the most vulnerable families?

Are resources adequate?
How many street children have been successfully rehabilitated and reintegrated into schools over the past decade?

More importantly:
Why does it often seem that public attention only intensifies after a tragedy occurs?

A child should not have to die under a vehicle before society remembers that child rights exist.

Where Are Child Rights Advocates?
Ghana has ratified international conventions protecting children and has enacted laws safeguarding their welfare.

Organizations frequently organize conferences, workshops, and campaigns on child protection.

But one question deserves honest reflection:

If child rights are truly a national priority, why are vulnerable children still visible at almost every major intersection in our cities?

Protection cannot exist only in policy documents.

It must be visible on the streets.
What Does Ghana's Children's Act Say?

The Children's Act, 1998 (Act 560), recognizes the right of every child to protection, education, healthcare, and development.

The law discourages exploitative child labor and places responsibilities on parents, guardians, institutions, and the state to ensure children's welfare.

The Act emphasizes that the best interests of the child should be paramount in all decisions affecting children.

Yet seeing children exposed daily to dangerous highways forces us to ask:

Are we fully enforcing the spirit and letter of the law?

Because laws that remain unenforced become little more than words on paper.

Why Are These Children Not in School?
Ghana has made significant progress in expanding access to education.

Yet access and attendance are not always the same.

Some children struggle with school-related costs despite free basic education policies. Others lack uniforms, transportation, learning materials, or family support. Many children are forced to choose work over education simply to help their families survive.

But another critical question emerges:
How can a country build a competitive future when thousands of its children are spending their formative years in traffic instead of classrooms?

The future workforce of any nation is sitting in today's classrooms.

Or standing at today's traffic lights.

Who Brings Children onto the Streets?
The answer often involves multiple actors.

Parents.
Guardians.
Employers.
Traffickers.
Poverty.
Weak enforcement systems.
And sometimes, collective societal indifference.

When children repeatedly appear in dangerous environments, responsibility rarely belongs to one individual alone.

It reflects failures across families, communities, institutions, and governance structures.

Are These Children Safe?
The evidence suggests otherwise.
Street children face numerous risks, including:

- Road accidents.
- Physical abuse.
- Sexual exploitation.
- Human trafficking.
- Substance abuse.
- Malnutrition.
- Mental health challenges.
- Criminal recruitment.
Many experience forms of trauma that can affect their development for years.

Yet they continue returning to the streets every day.

Perhaps because survival leaves them with few alternatives.

What Are Citizens Doing?
Government cannot solve this challenge alone.

Citizens encounter these children daily.

Many offer money, food, clothing, and support.

These acts of kindness matter.
However, charity alone cannot replace systemic solutions.

The harder question is:
Have we become so accustomed to seeing children on highways that we no longer see the crisis?

Sometimes societal normalization becomes the greatest obstacle to change.

What Role Does Society Play?
Society shapes the environment in which children grow.

Communities can identify vulnerable families before crises escalate.

Religious institutions can support struggling households.

Businesses can invest in community welfare programs.

Local leaders can champion child protection initiatives.

Educational institutions can strengthen outreach programs.

Every citizen has a role.
Because every child on the street is ultimately a reflection of collective societal choices.

Are We Serious as a Country?
This question may sound uncomfortable.
But it deserves consideration.
A nation's priorities are often reflected not in speeches, but in outcomes.

If children remain exposed to dangerous highways, deprived of education, and vulnerable to exploitation, then difficult conversations must follow.

What kind of future are we building?
What message are we sending to the next generation?

And what does national development truly mean if thousands of children are left behind?

The Future Consequences Nobody Wants to Discuss

Perhaps the most important questions are about tomorrow.

What happens when children grow up without adequate education?

What happens when childhood trauma remains untreated?

What happens when vulnerable children become vulnerable adults?

The consequences may include:
- Increased unemployment.
- Rising crime rates.
- Social instability.
- Cycles of poverty.
- Reduced economic productivity.
- Greater pressure on public services.
The children on today's highways may become the adults shaping tomorrow's society.

Ignoring the problem today does not eliminate it.

It merely postpones the consequences.
If We Fail, Nobody Is Safe
This is not merely a children's issue.

It is a national issue.
A security issue.
A development issue.
A moral issue.
The child selling water in traffic today could become a doctor, teacher, engineer, entrepreneur, or national leader tomorrow if given the opportunity.

But opportunity requires action.
If we continue to look away, the cost will eventually be paid by all of us.

And when that day comes, blaming government alone will not be enough.

Blaming parents alone will not be enough.

Blaming poverty alone will not be enough.

Because every child abandoned by society becomes a responsibility that society will eventually face.

The children on our highways are not somebody else's children.

They are Ghana's children.
And the question before us is simple:
Will we protect them now, or will we wait until the consequences become impossible to ignore?

By:
Patrick Belebang Yagsori
+233240292413
patrickbelebang@gmail.com

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