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Ghana treating child abuse cases trivially - Activist

Ms Dora Owusu from the Centre for Social Policy Studies of the University of Ghana said children are continuously being physically and sexually abused because the country has not been forthcoming when it comes to enforcement of laws on child abuse.

 

According to her, children are continuously being physically and sexually abused because the country has not been forthcoming when it comes to enforcement of laws on child abuse.

“We have made a little stride but we have a long way to go. The reason being that we are quick to enact laws but its implementation is never done well in this country. And so all the time we enact laws and then we give windows for people to pass through and so when they are caught in the net they have an escape way to escape from the net,” she told Radio Ghana in an interview.

Her comments come on the back of a programme on Cyber crime involving children, which was held by the Ministry of Gender and social protection in Accra on Tuesday.

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Nana Oye Lithur, Minister for Gender and Social Protection believes parents must be aware of what is going on with their children – both online and offline, in order to improve child online protection in Ghana.

However, Ms Dora Owusu argues that parents can only get involved if they are made to understand the language of the internet and what the main issues are with cyber crime.

“We need to look at our mode of education again; the way we advocate; the way we explain the things to people...We need to understand what the cyber crime is. If we don’t understand it, how are we going to tackle it?” she asked.

A cost and budget analysis study undertaken in 2014 by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social protection with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF to examine the economic cost of child protection in Ghana revealed that an estimated cost of between 927 million Ghana cedis and 1.4 billion cedis was spent on addressing child abuse cases annually.

Ms Dora Owusu believes the issue of child protection demands the collaboration of all and sundry including parents, government, traditional leaders, and so on, in order to yield the desired results.

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