3071-The political economy of new slavery

Amanda Berlan 175
full-time and are not in school, as part of their salary is deducted for
every child enrolled at the school who has not paid school fees. Therefore
they turn a blind eye to children from poorer backgrounds who
are sent to farm rather than school in the knowledge that they may
struggle to collect school fees from them. The description of school
conditions demonstrates that although putting children in school is
hailed as a victory for child rights and the key to ending child labour,
the poor-quality education in schools may actually be driving children
to work. It is also wrong to assume that child labour is less harmful to
children who attend school than to children who do not as there is
evidence to show that their performance suffers considerably. More
fundamentally, one could question whether the school environment
is such an ideal one. While issues such as language or caning taken in
isolation cannot account for high drop-out rates or low rates of success
in exams, cumulatively they make school a deeply unattractive environment
for a child, especially when combined with other factors such
as child labour and malnutrition. Many children who work full-time
on a cocoa farm and do not attend school have chosen to drop out, as
they prefer the conditions of working on the farm to being in school.
The implication for policy-makers is that any strategy on child labour
has to include provisions for improving quality of education, and school
enrolment alone does not necessarily constitute an improvement in
child rights, or mean that child labour is being effectively tackled.
Macro-level solutions to the problem of child labour and
the role of government
While it will take many years to significantly improve education in rural
areas, the government is taking significant steps to combat child labour
and promote child rights. Over the past decade or so, the government
took a host of key measures. For example, Ghana was the first country
in the world to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child in 1991. It ratified Convention 182 for the Elimination of the
Worst Forms of Child Labour in 1999. The Ghana National Commission
on Children (GNCC) was established in 1991 and constitutional provisions
on the rights and protection of the child were made in 1992.
The Children’s Act was passed in 1998. This set of laws deals specifically
with issues such as child labour, protection from degrading treatment,
or right to refuse marriage and betrothal. Although new laws are
presently being drawn up specifically to deal with child trafficking,
there is already sufficient provision in existing legislation to prosecute