Child Labour Versus Realising Children’s Right to Provision, Protection, and Participation in Ghana

ABSTRACT

The need to establish universal standards to protect children led to the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). I drew on literature exploring the UNCRC and children’s rights to provision, protection, and participation. This paper aimed to ascertain challenges of enforcing children’s rights to provision, protection, and participation in rural and urban Ghana drawing on the experiences and perceptions of 60 government officials, NGO representatives, and parents. Semistructured interviews were conducted with parents (10), stakeholders (10), focus groups (30); and participant observation techniques (10) were utilised to gather the required data and purposively sampled across rural and urban areas in Ghana. Interviews were recorded, and transcribed utilising a framework approach as the qualitative data analysis method. Acceptance of childhood as understood in the UNCRC is different from traditional child-rearing patterns in rural and urban Ghana.

IMPLICATIONS

• Social workers' knowledge about dealing with dilemmas posed by rights to provision, protection, and participation for children may be enhanced.

• Social workers can improve their knowledge of factors that challenge the enforcement of children’s rights for children engaged in child labour and the possible tension between children and parental rights in their everyday social work practice.

• Social workers can introduce culturally sensitive parenting programs and develop their own contribution towards monitoring and implementing the rights to provision, protection, and participation for children.

需要建立普遍的标准保护儿童，因此而有了⟪联合国儿童权利公约⟫。本文根据60位政府官员、NGO代表、儿童家长的经历及感受，分析了加强儿童权利对加纳城乡在服务、保护及参与方面都构成了哪些挑战。研究者对10位家长、10位相关者、30位焦点小组成员做了半固定访谈，通过参与式观察搜集必要的资料，并形成加纳城乡的样本。访谈做了录音并整理为文字，采用了框架方式进行定性资料的分析。⟪联合国儿童权利公约⟫中的童年与加纳城乡抚育儿童的传统方式是不一样的。

KEYWORDS:

• UNCRC
• Children’s Rights
• Child Labour
• Provision
• Protection
• Participation

Acknowledgements

My most profound gratitude goes to Associate Professor Nicola Henry, Centre for Global Research, RMIT University, Melbourne and Dr Nicholas Barry, Department of Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University for their academic support and guidance throughout this research. Completing this paper would not have been possible without the help and support of these great academics.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).