Article: Salome Donkor
The Children’s Act 1998 (Act 560) defines a child as a person below the age of 18 and entrusts parents with the responsibilities to protect the child from neglect, discrimination, violence, abuse, exposure to physical and moral hazards and oppression.
Media reports on the abuse of the rights of the child sometimes involving parents, who refused to provide guidance, care, assistance and maintenance for the child and assure them of their survival and development, amount to breach of the Children’s Act.
The efficient enforcement of children’s rights is affected by the fact that most children were not enlightened on their rights, while some state institutions charged with the protection of children’s rights were confronted with challenges that render their operations ineffective.
At the recent annual Easter School for Children in Sunyani, the Brong Ahafo Regional capital, organised by Child's Rights International (CRI) in co-operation with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), that provided a forum for children to actively participate in open discussions about critical issues that affected their welfare and the enjoyment of children's rights, the participants engaged in constructive dialogue with one another and with policy makers and government officials in Ghana.
The Tano North District Girl-Child Co-ordinator, Mrs Margaret Anane-Agyei, lamented the high incidence of teenage pregnancy among students in the district, in an interview with the Daily Graphic.
She said last year,23 female students who wrote the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the district, were found to be pregnant and pointed out that apart from that, some female students found to be pregnant were in primary four and in other classes.
She attributed the problem to poverty, which she said had led to a high level of parental neglect and irresponsibility, adding that, in their quest to make money, some parents neglected the training and upbringing of their children and left them “to manage their own affairs”.
She also said the negative influence of foreign culture which made some young girls in rural communities copy foreign culture blindly, as well as peer pressure influence, have compounded the problem.
She stressed the need for churches to use the Women and Men’s Fellowships to champion parental responsibility and child upbringing, and also called for women empowerment programmes to improve the financial position of women to help them support the upkeep of their homes.
The Deputy Regional Co-ordinator of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service, Assistant Supervisor of Police (ASP) Setina Aboagye, said much as emphasis was being put on the need to arrest perpetrators of child sexual abuse, emphasis should also be placed on the need for victims of sexual abuse to make a report to the police and also seek early medical care to protect them against sexually transmitted diseases.
She also called on the media to protect sexual violence victims in order not to compound their emotional and psychological trauma.
The Executive Director of Child’s Rights International, Mr Bright Appiah, said failure to promote children’s rights amount to stifling their efforts to realise their potentials, adding that the CRI organised the programme annually on specific theme “to remind us of what we can do to protect the rights of children”.
The Associate Community Services Officer of the UNHCR, Ms Elsie Dinah Yaokumah, said like all other children, displaced and trafficked children, as well as and street children need to be provided with the basic necessities of lives namely, food clothing and shelter and pointed out that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has camps in various parts of the country, sheltering refugee children from neighbouring countries.
The participants, after the six-day forum, presented a communiqué to the Regional Co-ordinating Council,after they had visited the Techiman Market,various houses, shops and drinking bars to distribute 250 copies of the Children’s Act 560.They also visited the Sunyani Traditional Council to interact with the traditions rulers.
The communiqué called for intensive efforts to empower women through the institution of microfinance programmes, as well as the institution of a social intervention programmes to ensure that all these children are covered under the National Health Insurance Scheme.
It also urged the Department of Social Welfare to monitor the activities of children and urged the Department of Social Welfare, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC), to institute programmes to tackle the problems of child labour and early marriages, involving children.
It further called for the translation of the Children’s Act into Child friendly versions to be produced and distributed to promote legal literacy of the Act, stressing that the production of more copies of Act 560, as well as its translation into local dialects for the appreciation of all, must be enhanced.
Children who participated in this year’s programme exhibited unique talents, in addition to sharing experiences and discussing critical issues that affected the welfare of children.
The participants entertained the gathering with cultural display to emphasise their expectations from parents, guardians, child rights activists and stakeholders, in order to bridge the gap between children’s rights and realities.
A 12-year-old Junior High School (JHS) student of the Duayaw Nkwanta District Assembly JHS, Hannah Serwaah Arthur, who was selected by her school to participate in the Presidential Dinner in Accra, won the admiration of the audience with her display of brilliance and eloquence with a recital on the importance of education and the need for parents to educate their children to help unearth their talents.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
‘Shirley Graham Du Bois was a woman of many lives’
Story: Salome Donkor
Mrs Shirley Graham Du Bois, the widow of Dr W.E.B Du Bois-an American civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, historian, author and editor, is not only remembered for her political commitment to the civil rights movement, women’s rights and anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia, but also remembered as a faithful caretaker and companion of her legendary husband.
The African-American author, playwright, composer and activist for African-Americans and other people, lived between 1896 and 1977, and got married in 1951, the second marriage for both. The couple later emigrated to Ghana, and received citizenship in 1961. In 1963 her husband died.
A biography on Mrs Du Bois, titled “Race Woman: The life of Shirley Graham Du Bois” written by Dr Gerald Horne of the University of Huston, described her as a “restless, multifaceted woman” and indicated that her life began with an early commitment to uplift her race.
The book shows how Mrs Du Bois handled successfully or unsuccessfully, the conflicts that confronted her as a black woman in a male-dominated arena and her personal struggle to resolve her parenting responsibilities with her artistic and political goals.
She understood that a solid education could free her from the challenges confronting most women in her time and reasoned that education might allow her to achieve better employment and be able to better support her children. For that reason, she relocated in 1929 to Paris, France, to study music composition.
In 1965, she was made the director of Ghana Television and in 1967, she moved to Cairo, Egypt, after a military-led coup d'etat, where she continued writing and died of breast cancer in March 27, 1977 in Beijing, China, where she had gone for treatment.
An 11-member panel that discussed the book at the American Embassy in Accra recently, as part of the centenary celebrations of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, made reference to Mrs Du Bois’ political and cultural activities and commitment to uplift her race.
Prof. Ablade Glover, who met Mrs Du Bois in Ghana in 1964, described the formative years of Mrs Du Bois as interesting, considering the fact that she left her sons in the care of others to go and study in France, where she met a lot of Black Americans and Africans who shared her activist kind of thinking.
Dr Mohammed Ben Abdellah of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Legon, touched on the frustrations of artists, like Mrs Du Bois, in her bid to get a firm grip on the theatre and her contribution to the establishment of Ghana television in 1965. It was her expectation at the establishment of Ghana Television that 85 per cent of programmes to be shown on that station would originate from Ghana.
In her presentation, Dr Esi Sutherland Addy, a scholar in Diaspora studies, African history and culture of the Arts, touched on chapter five of the book, which she said revealed the soft and vulnerable side of Mrs Du Bois who spent a lot of time caring for her husband in his latter days, while Prof. Akosua A Ampofo, of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, described Mrs Du Bois as a woman with many lives that is worthy to be considered, adding that she was a strong character in her marriage, playing the motherly role, which she described as intriguing.
The other panelists were Dr Kofi Baku, immediate Head of the History Department of the University of Ghana, Prof. Alex Quarmyne, a retired Director of Ghana Television, who took over from Mrs Du Bois as the Director of Ghana Television after she left Ghana, Madam Mamle Kabu, writer and novelist from Ghana, Ms Doris Kuwornu, Director of Corporate Affairs, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Prof. Kojo Yankah, founder of the African University College of Education, and Prof. Akosua Anyidoho, of European University in Ghana.
The discussions were followed by a Video Conference with the author described Mrs as woman with tremendous accomplishment and said he referred to her as ‘Race Woman’ because Mrs Du Bois was concerned about the life and destiny of people of African-American descent.
Mrs Shirley Graham Du Bois, the widow of Dr W.E.B Du Bois-an American civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, historian, author and editor, is not only remembered for her political commitment to the civil rights movement, women’s rights and anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia, but also remembered as a faithful caretaker and companion of her legendary husband.
The African-American author, playwright, composer and activist for African-Americans and other people, lived between 1896 and 1977, and got married in 1951, the second marriage for both. The couple later emigrated to Ghana, and received citizenship in 1961. In 1963 her husband died.
A biography on Mrs Du Bois, titled “Race Woman: The life of Shirley Graham Du Bois” written by Dr Gerald Horne of the University of Huston, described her as a “restless, multifaceted woman” and indicated that her life began with an early commitment to uplift her race.
The book shows how Mrs Du Bois handled successfully or unsuccessfully, the conflicts that confronted her as a black woman in a male-dominated arena and her personal struggle to resolve her parenting responsibilities with her artistic and political goals.
She understood that a solid education could free her from the challenges confronting most women in her time and reasoned that education might allow her to achieve better employment and be able to better support her children. For that reason, she relocated in 1929 to Paris, France, to study music composition.
In 1965, she was made the director of Ghana Television and in 1967, she moved to Cairo, Egypt, after a military-led coup d'etat, where she continued writing and died of breast cancer in March 27, 1977 in Beijing, China, where she had gone for treatment.
An 11-member panel that discussed the book at the American Embassy in Accra recently, as part of the centenary celebrations of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, made reference to Mrs Du Bois’ political and cultural activities and commitment to uplift her race.
Prof. Ablade Glover, who met Mrs Du Bois in Ghana in 1964, described the formative years of Mrs Du Bois as interesting, considering the fact that she left her sons in the care of others to go and study in France, where she met a lot of Black Americans and Africans who shared her activist kind of thinking.
Dr Mohammed Ben Abdellah of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Legon, touched on the frustrations of artists, like Mrs Du Bois, in her bid to get a firm grip on the theatre and her contribution to the establishment of Ghana television in 1965. It was her expectation at the establishment of Ghana Television that 85 per cent of programmes to be shown on that station would originate from Ghana.
In her presentation, Dr Esi Sutherland Addy, a scholar in Diaspora studies, African history and culture of the Arts, touched on chapter five of the book, which she said revealed the soft and vulnerable side of Mrs Du Bois who spent a lot of time caring for her husband in his latter days, while Prof. Akosua A Ampofo, of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, described Mrs Du Bois as a woman with many lives that is worthy to be considered, adding that she was a strong character in her marriage, playing the motherly role, which she described as intriguing.
The other panelists were Dr Kofi Baku, immediate Head of the History Department of the University of Ghana, Prof. Alex Quarmyne, a retired Director of Ghana Television, who took over from Mrs Du Bois as the Director of Ghana Television after she left Ghana, Madam Mamle Kabu, writer and novelist from Ghana, Ms Doris Kuwornu, Director of Corporate Affairs, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Prof. Kojo Yankah, founder of the African University College of Education, and Prof. Akosua Anyidoho, of European University in Ghana.
The discussions were followed by a Video Conference with the author described Mrs as woman with tremendous accomplishment and said he referred to her as ‘Race Woman’ because Mrs Du Bois was concerned about the life and destiny of people of African-American descent.
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