News Ghana, Latest Updates and Breaking News of Ghana, GNA, https://newsghana.com.gh/western-regional-child-protection-committee-urges-ratification-of-optional-protocols/
Members of the Western Region Child Protection Committee have accepted the ratification of Optional protocols as key in aiding the country to effectively report on issues in that arena.
The Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child are the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.
The members noted that, now the use of phones and Internet and other ICT tools by children were exposing them to such ill trade by miscreants or just merely watching pornographic materials.
This, according to the committee members, promoted the desire for sexual behaviours resulting in prostitution, need to travel for work in other countries, which sometimes resulted in kidnapping and organ harvesting by syndicate in that business.
They in that regard, stressed the need for the ratification of the Protocols to help in cases of extradition, issues on jurisdictions, communication and reporting state parties and liabilities should such offences occur.
Lawyer Mabel Okine, from the Attorney General’s Department, said consolidating laws on children was critical to promote greater advocacy.
She also called on parents and families to begin having plain conversations with children on these areas to keep them properly informed.
Dr Sylvester Kyei-Gyamfi, Head of Research at the Department of Children said the optional protocols were becoming social issues of concerns which called for concerted efforts among all stakeholders to effectively stemmed it out or minimize it effects among Ghanaian children.
He said shaping the thoughts of children on these issues were also cardinal to deliver Ghanaian children from this creeping canker.
Some school children asked questions about how such pornographic materials could be stopped from popping up on the internet and phones, the meaning of ratification and signed documents.
They also entreated parents to have the patience to listen to their challenges on reproductive health rights and not to perceive them as “spoilt” children when they desired honest conversation around such issues.
News Ghana, Latest Updates and Breaking News of Ghana, GNA, https://newsghana.com.gh/western-regional-child-protection-committee-urges-ratification-of-optional-protocols/
