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Clergymen empowered to fight child trafficking

By GNA
Social News Clergymen empowered to fight child trafficking
JUL 21, 2017 LISTEN

Accra, July 21, GNA - The Accra Diocese of the Anglican Church has organised a day's advocacy and training workshop on child trafficking to empower 35 clergy men to combat the menace in their communities.

They were taken through community dynamics, human rights laws, Christian justice, and the realities of child trafficking, with the aim to broaden their knowledge on the subject.

The training programme forms part of a five-year campaign of the Anglican Diocese of Accra and the United States Embassy to combat child trafficking in Ghana.

The campaign would focus on awareness creation through the use of symbols and slogans, community mobilisation and outreach educational programmes, capacity building, institutional strengthening and networking.

Other initiatives include groups and individual empowerment, checking and supporting victims; as well as well as supporting and encouraging stakeholders through legislative and pragmatic measures to confront the root causes of child trafficking on a sustained basis.

Right Reverend Dr Daniel Sylvanus Mensah Torto, Bishop of the Accra Diocese of the Anglican Church, said the programme was an integral part of the Diocese vision under the pillar 'Social Impact' which sought to make an impact, not only in the immediate church community, but also in the larger national environment.

He said the Sixth Ghana Living Standard Survey estimated that of the over 8.6 million children between the ages of five and 17, representing 21.8 per cent were engaged in child labour; while over 1.3 million representing 14.2 per cent were engaged in hazardous child labour.

Rt. Rev. Dr Torto quoted an International Labour Organisation/Ghana Government study undertaken in 2013, which indicated that an estimated 49,000 children were working in the fishing industry on the Volta Lake, many of them in dangerous circumstances.

He said the Church as part of its five-year campaign was building a community shelter to be called the 'Hope Village' to receive and rehabilitate rescued victims.

He said the Church would mount an intense advocacy on every last Sunday of the month in all its parishes and congregations to restore the dignity of vulnerable ones.

He said the Anglican Diocese of Accra in its quest to support efforts to address and eliminate the menace had adopted a three-tier theory of change aimed at the individual, societal and structural levels.

He added that the Church had adopted a four-pronged strategy, namely, protection, education, livelihood and advocacy to tackle child trafficking.

Explaining the four strategies, Rt Rev. Torto said the child protection aspect entails raising awareness for behavioural change, a curative strategy of rescue, rehabilitation, re-integration and monitoring of victims of child trafficking.

He continued that affordable education would be provided for children from deprived and underprivileged families.

'The advocacy aspect focuses on seeking to influence national and international policies and programmes which protect children, and pushing for their enforcement.

Mr Robert Porter Jackson, the US Ambassador to Ghana, said the Embassy had collaborated with the government on numerous occasions to help eliminate child trafficking

He said it appeared people were ignorant of the menace and saw it as part of social culture thereby emphasising the need to recognise and combat trafficking in various communities.

He therefore urged religious leaders to propagate the gospel in their pulpits to help salvage victims and commended the Church for its efforts in establishing tactics.

GNA

By Kwamina Tandoh/Doris Ablordey, GNA

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