Committee: International Labour Organization
Topic: Child Labour
Delegation: Ghana
Highland Park High School
Shruti Sharma
Child labor, the act of forcing children under fifteen to work under physically or mentally
harmful conditions, has become a prominent issue that needs immediate attention (“Child”). The
International Labour Organization recently estimated that 218 million unfortunate children from
developing countries have been victims of child labor (“Child Protection”). Of these, one
hundred twenty six million children have been put under hazardous work conditions (“Child
Labor”). Due to the harmful effects of child labor, myriads of adolescents have been disabled
with eye damages, lung disease, stunted growth, injured hands and legs, and disposition to
arthritis (“Child Labor”).
There are many areas where child laborers work, including agriculture, domestic work,
and military (“Child Labor”). Out of 218 million child laborers, 150 million children are working
in agriculture. These children frequently work for long hours in sweltering heat while exposed to
toxic pesticides, and suffer high rates of injuries from sharp tools (“Agriculture”). This harsh
work violates their rights to health, education, and protection from hazardous and exploitive
work (“Backgrounder”).
Most of the children working in agricultural fields are bonded child laborers (“Child
Labour”). Bonded child labor occurs when families receive an advance payment, sometimes as
little as fifteen U.S. dollars, to hand their boy or girl to an employer (“Child Labour”). The
employer keeps the child for cheap labor in a manner that is impossible for a child to repay the
debt (“Agriculture”). Usually, the child cannot pay off their debt and their parents cannot buy
them out of slavery (“Agriculture”). Many times, child bonding happens over generations. A
grand-parent might offer their future generations to an employer, which leads their future in
jeopardy. This also makes it harder to eliminate the matter of child labor (“Child Labor”).
Around the world 200 thousand to 300 thousand children are put in the front lines of
combat with ak-14s and M-16s. Usually used as defenders and landmine testers, children risk
their lives (“Youth”). Many children escape from poverty by joining military forces to earn the
little pay offered (“Child Soldiers”). Once in the military, child soldiers cannot return back to
their normal life, for they are threatened to death by their commanders (“Child Soldiers”). This
simple act of exploitation has left children in danger.
Poor girls, in developing countries, normally find themselves scrubbing floors and dusting
furniture ("Domestic Work”). Domestic work is the area in which girls normally receive money
to aid their families (“Swept Under the Rug: Abuses Against Domestic Workers Around the
World”). Some girls, however, are forced into prostitution with promises of domestic work
(“Domestic Work”). Unfortunately, at times girls are not assured their promises by men who
have used them. Many of the outcomes of domestic work are physical, psychological, and sexual
abuse; long working days, deprivation of food, very low if not no wages, and dangerous
workplaces (“Swept Under the Rug: Abuses Against Domestic Workers Around the World”). These
problems more frequently stem from forced labor, when a state demands labor instead of having
the act to be a punishment (“Fighting Slavery Today- Forced Labor”). By indulging in such jobs,
girls are not protected by the governments which pose this labor (“Domestic Work”). In order to
help these innocent young ladies the governments of various states must take immediate action.
Natural Catastrophes also play a role in raising the population of child laborers (“After
tsunami, preventing child exploitation in Aceh”). The 2005 Tsunami destroyed the economies of
Asia’s countries (“After Tsunami, Preventing Child Exploitation in Aceh”). These disasters
cause families to build new homes which require more money (“After Tsunami, Preventing
Child Exploitation in Aceh”). Eventually, this causes children to work in their farms and help
their parents instead of attending school (“The Tsunamis and Child Trafficking”). When an
increasing amount of children have to aid their families who sink in poverty, eradicating child
labor becomes more difficult (“After Tsunami, Preventing Child Exploitation in Aceh”).
When children are forced to work in industries, their education is harmed (“Causes”).
Receiving education is crucial to reduce a state’s political, economic, and social difficulties
(Badiwala). However, when children are not given a chance to learn, these difficulties are harder
to tackle (Badiwala). The problem of child labor jeopardizes a state’s literacy rates, poverty
level, and life expectancies (“Child Labour and Society”). Therefore, it is extremely important
that the issue is addressed.
There are many reasons for child labor, mainly economic instability which is,
unfortunately, a widespread and persistent problem in Ghana (“The Globalization of Labor”).
Recent statistics prove that there are approximately 800 thousand children working in Ghana
because of their family’s conditions of poverty (“The Big Picture”). Child employment areas in
Ghana include working in markets, collecting fares on buses, or working as servants (“The
Globalization of Labor”). For girls between the ages of ten and fourteen, jobs as domestic
servants are common. UNICEF reported that 80 percent of girls, aged ten through fourteen are
working as domestic servants (“Child Labour Prevails in Ghana”). To earn money, girls also take
part in prostitution (“Child Labour Prevails in Ghana”).Young Ghanaian girls are lured into
prostitution by promises of work as domestic servants. Ghanaian children are among those
trafficked between the West African countries of Benin, Togo, Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial
Guinea and the Congo as domestic labor (“Child Labour Prevails in Ghana”). Child Labour also
persists in Ghanaian cocoa farms (“Combating Child Labour in Cocoa Fields”). Children, forced
to pick up cocoa beans, stay for hours in treacherous heat (Aaronson). This simple job of picking
cocoa beans is utter slavery which needs to stop (Aaronson). If individual family poverty is
addressed, child labor will be more easily terminated.
Ghana, is taking a step forward in facing and terminating its extensive problem of child
labor. Ghana was the first to ratify the convention on the Rights of the Child, in February 1990
(“THIRD”). Ghana has facilitated programs aimed at promoting child survival and decreasing
the number of child laborers (“Third”). With the support of UNICEF the country was achieving
its goals of educating children and helping families financially by supporting them with fresh
water and food- a necessity that many Ghanaian families lack (“Third”). Under Ghana’s
constitution, parents have the right to care, nurture, and up bring their children, and the state has
been doing its best in enforcing the law on society (“Third”). Hopefully, parents will acquire
ultimate control of their child or children instead of the employer having maximum power over
the child (“Third”). This would also ensure the children their right of safety. Enforcing the
constitution’s amendment would show the state’s policy of providing their future paramount
attention (“Third”).
More recently, Ghana proposed to discuss and pose a plan which would help eliminate the
problem of child labor in cocoa fields (“Ghana: Eradicating Child/Force Labour”). Ghana is
active in its community to help children achieve a better life (“Ghana: Eradicating Child/Force
Labour”).Taking this step, Ghana has shown that they are worried about their future. Ghana is
also working with the International Cocoa Initiative, ICI, by launching awareness projects which
focus on the issues around child forced labor (Guyton). One of such programs which the
government of Ghana formed with assistance from ICI is the National Program for the
Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labor in Cocoa, also known as NPECLC. NPECLC
mobilizes government resources, passes laws, and improve the lives of children (“What We’re
Doing to Help Children and Families”)
Resolutions of child labor face immediate attention. Ghana would like to work with NGOs
by spreading awareness programs of child labor to rural areas. Already, NGOs have targeted
cities to decrease the harsh employment areas of adolescents. Children working in rural places in
Africa would be among those which Ghana would look forward to reach out. Eradicating the
number of children working in cocoa fields, where myriads of children in Africa receive little
pay, Ghana hopes to collaborate with Oxfam International, an NGO currently helping deduct
children working in agricultural areas. Already, Oxfam is helping countries with educating their
people. By educating more children poverty will lessen and therefore the amount of child
laborers will reduce. We have to resolve the problem of child labor at its roots; hence we must
help countries’ poverty levels decrease. Ghana would like to assist children by providing them
with proper care and necessities for a prosperous future.
Ghana is eager to address the issue of child labor at the international community, and is
open to all ideas to resolve the widespread crisis. Ghana believes collaborating with other
countries and organizations can defeat the persistent problem of Child Labour.
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