VIOLATIONS OF CHILDREN’S HUMAN
RIGHTS IN CONTEMPORARY GHANA
BY MATHIAS SØGAARD
ABSTR ACT: This article guides the reader through some
of the current violations of children’s rights in Ghana. The
main focus is that of education, because lack of access to
education has a lasting, negative affect on both gender roles
and the wealth of the person and his or her descendants.
Thereby, education is one of the best means of breaking
the negative social heritage. Other issues include the use of
violence by parents and state representatives, witch camps,
and child labour. This article will not only narrate the
problems, but also provide the reader with insight as to why some of these violations are allowed to continue.
Key words: Witch camps, Education, Gender inequality, Child labour,
Fishing industry, Plantation
rsr
I. General Knowledge on Child Labor and the Rights of the Child
According to international convention, a child is a person under the age of
18. Ghana has signed the United Nations International Labor Organization’s
Convention on Children’s Rights1, which allows a child age 12 to work under
light working conditions, , that do not threaten the health and education
of the child. Ghanaian authorities estimate that 40 percent of children
are economically active, representing nearly 2.5 million children out of 6
million. Out of those children, 1.59 million are engaged in labor while also
in school. Children in rural areas work more than children in urban areas.2
All children in Ghana are protected under the Ghanaian Constitution of
1992. Section 28(2). states that, “[e]very child has the right to be protected
from engaging in work that constitutes a threat to his health, education or
development.” Ghana also passed the Children’s Act in 1998, which stipulates further legal protections for children:3
Every parent has rights and responsibilities whether imposed by law or
36 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
otherwise towards his child which include the duty to: (a) protect the
child from neglect, discrimination, violence, abuse, exposure to physical
and moral hazards and oppression.
It recognizes their civil rights more generally as well:4
Right to education and well-being. (1) No person shall deprive a child
access to education, immunisation, adequate diet, clothing, shelter,
medical attention or any other thing required for his development.
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) is
the institution responsible for preventing human rights abuse.5 Even though
CHRAJ is independent from the government, it is primarily government
funded, and members are appointed by the President as enshrined in the
Constitution under articles 216 – 230. Members of CHRAJ regularly complain of inadequate and irregular funding, making it difficult for them to carry out their mission to the appropriate standard.6 Due to CHRAJ’s limited
capacity to regulate human rights abuses, in addition to general poverty and
cultural norms, infringements of children’s rights continue. Such violations
occur in the daily lives of Ghanaian children, where they find little protection from the state. In fact, those who flout the legal protections and conventions geared towards children may even be representatives of the state.
II. The Ghanaian Government Stance on Education
Education is one of the most important tools in securing the rights of children. As such, achieving universal education plays a significant role in the
2015 United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).7 Ghana is a
participating UN partner and has committed itself to attaining the MDGs;
yet, there is still an educational gap between the southern and northern part
of Ghana that has existed as long as the modern state of Ghana. Ghana’s first
President, Kwame Nkrumah, tried to leverage the education inequality by
providing free schooling for both primary and secondary levels in the three
Northern Regions. In the Southern Regions, only primary school was free.
In the latest 2012 presidential election, the New Patriotic Party (NPP)
opposition party vowed to make secondary school free nationwide, by
financing education through profits from Ghana’s oil industry. Given that
the Ghanaian oil industry is rather young, in that the oil began to flow in
www.thehumanprospect.com 37
September, 2010, its impact on the general development of Ghana is still
too early to predict. The NPP lost, but the incumbent party, the National
Democratic Congress (NDC), decided to make universal education part of
its official policy. As a result, secondary school will be free for all Ghanaian
students by the summer of 2015.8
Nevertheless, the schools continue to face several problems. First, teachers
prefer to work in the south. The wages are better, modern commodities are
more accessible, and teaching positions offer more professional prestige. As
northern teachers flock to southern schools, more than 400 schools in the
north have no teachers at all.9 Consequently, the average student in the
north performs poorly in national tests in comparison to the average student
in the south.10
Second, the lack of qualified teachers is a regional and national problem.
A local Danish non-governmental organisation (NGO), IBIS, estimates,
that Ghana lacks approximately 60,000 teachers, especially in the Northern
Regions and the rural areas, where sanitation and electrical services are
unpredictable.11 The statistic could imply that some educators are teaching
without the required qualifications. As a result, the quality of the education
varies throughout the nation.
Third, several Regions have established what the locals have dubbed
“schools under trees”. These are schools where teaching occurs under the
trees to avoid the scolding sun. Hence, the students and teachers fall victim
to the weather, because they lack access to proper facilities. Former NDC
President, John Mills, was publicly criticised when he announced that Ghana had eradicated schools under trees in his speech at the UN in 2010. Subsequently, newspapers reported evidence of several schools where education
continued to take place outdoors.12
Fourth, government financial support for schools is inadequate to cover the
true costs of education. In schools that receive government funding, students still have to cover exam fees, lunch, and the expense of materials like
pencils and notebooks. In addition, teachers may not receive their monthly
state wage.13 When they do receive their wages, payment is often too low
to sustain a satisfactory standard of living. In that case, parents struggle to
pay the teachers to keep working. Forty percent of parents have had to pay
bribes or additional fees:
38 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
Even though primary education is deemed to be free in Ghana, parents
are still held responsible for ancillary charges such as uniforms, school
supplies, and ad hoc infrastructural needs at the school, etc. This places
an extra burden on parents, many of whom struggle to earn a living
wage, especially in rural areas.14
The undergirding problem is that teachers are not duly paid.15 Male teachers
are also frequently accused of misusing their authority to demand sex from
female students so that female students might receive passing grades.16
Lastly, at public schools, especially the primary level, small classrooms are
often packed with 60 or more pupils. This high student-teacher ratio hinders
basic learning in subjects such as mathematics, writing, and reading. It also
makes it difficult for the teacher to keep order in the classroom. Teachers
may resort to corporal punishment as disciplinary action, which prevents
learning and erodes the education system by exposing children to more
violence and abuse.
III. Nationwide Problems
In spite of government attempts to improve access to education by summer 2015, this research asserts that severe internal problems plague the
Ghanaian school system. The systemic nature of these challenges are evident in the broad range of problems that Ghanaian children face both inside
and outside the school walls. These problems can be examined from both a
national and regional perspective to expose the contrasting experiences of
children in various parts of the country.
Violations of Female Students’ Rights to Education
The local NGO, Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), reports that
although the Ghanaian constitution states that primary education is compulsory for all Ghanaians, the situation is not so on the ground. Young girls
of schooling age are often denied that right. HRAC interviewed female
students across the country and reported that they were humiliated by fellow
students and the teachers when they returned to classes after giving birth
to a child. HRAC further uncovered how little school administrators did to
create a sound environment for learning:
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At best, headmasters and teachers are complicit in allowing these
environments to take hold at their schools. At worst, they play an active part in discouraging pregnant students from attending school by
contributing to these unsupportive environments.17
Female students are generally absent from school during parts of pregnancy,
an absence that can be hard to bridge upon their return. Ultimately, they
may be forced to withdraw from school completely. It is not the only reason,
but teen pregnancy is a crucial factor in explaining why more girls than
boys drop out of school.18
The problem of high attrition rates of pregnant female students is underlined by the fact that the male counterpart can continue his schooling with
little consequence, despite his role in impregnating the female student:
His life continues as normal. He continues to go to school. Ultimately,
he graduates. He has the opportunity to go to college, or university,
to get a job. He becomes a lawyer, the job he always wanted. Just as it
should be.19
This gender disparity is a problem across Ghana, and it is a concern on an
institutional level since the teachers, as representives of the state, can be
part of the problem. To have children is viewed as vital by several cultures
in Ghana, because a child will provide security for the parents when his or
her parents reach old age. The parents will secure their name and belongings, and children could be used for labour to secure the family economically. Children function as a safety net for the family. Furthermore, when
students become parents, their social status changes: they become a person
worthy of respect. They have officially left childhood, and they are now
adults. As an adult, a parent can demand respect and are entitled to a say
in community affairs.20
Furthermore, gender disparities also reinforce negative legal and social
ramifications. The girl’s right to education is violated, but the girl also has
limited chances of securing work and good wages. According to HRAC, for
every extra year in primary school, a girl’s expected wage will increase by
up to 20 percent. Per extra year in Senior High School, a female’s expected
wage can increase by up to 25 percent. Furthermore, she will have fewer
children and delay childbirth until she is older. Therefore, education works
40 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
as a force of liberation for the current generation. Denying a girl access to
education influences her children’s life as well as her own, given that an
educated mother is more likely to secure education for her children regardless of gender. In contrast, education improves the lives of current and future
generations, and creates an environment for equality and progress in Ghana over the long-term. Methods of enforcing gender equality need further
examination, and require that male and female elderly are included to
understand local reasons for accepting early childbirth. In this way, cooperative solutions that reflect community values and uphold the rights of female
children are possible.
Street Children
We do not know exactly how many street children there are in Ghana. Professor Agya Boakye-Boaten estimates that in the capital, Accra, located in the
most densely populated region, there are at least 20,000 street children.21 The
problem is found in all major Ghanaian cities. Street children try to find work
where they can. Their poverty makes them vulnerable to violence, drugs,
sexual abuse and illnesses such as malaria, cholera, and HIV/AIDS. Some are
engaged in petty trade such as selling pure water along the road sides. This
prevents them from attending school, and they are more likely to engage in
criminal activity. Girls may be raped by an individual or a gang if they refuse
to have sex. Boakye-Boaten reports that street children take care of each
other by sleeping in groups, where older children function as patrons and protectors. However, girls may also trade sex for security by offering sex to older
boys. Thus, girls on the street often become mothers at a very young age.
Both boys and girls prostitute themselves in the sex industry. The Ghanaian
AIDS Commission (GAC) recently released a report estimating that 11 percent of female sex workers live with HIV/AIDS, and 27,000 children in Ghana live with HIV/AIDS, although it is not clear what percentage of HIV/AIDS
affected children contracted HIV/AIDS through commercial sex work.22
The police perpetuate the fundamental and deep deficit of trust from children on the street, and they are repeatedly rated as the least trusted institution in Ghana.23 The Centre for Public Education and Human Rights in
Ghana has reported cases in which the police are complicit in committing
crimes.24 Street children do not expect help from the police in cases where
their human and constitutional rights are violated, and they do not generally
www.thehumanprospect.com 41
confide in the police.
As commercial sex work is a common choice for street children, they are
generally vulnerable to arrest. There are examples of the police arresting
sex workers, and in such cases, the police are preventing the possibility of
building trust between law enforcement and the children. Moreover, arrests
are counterproductive, because the police become the enemy rather than a
force of trust to help the children.25 It could be argued that the police rescue
the children from being sex workers, but the police do not offer the children
an alternative. The level of unemployment is high, and the children would
often not have the financial leverage to pay for education, leaving them to
the misery of the street. As a consequence, the children return to their previous work. Additionally, human rights lawyers, such as Tamale, argue that
police reinforcement exacerbates the harm and increases the level of stigmatisation.26 In New Zealand, police have experienced great success by turning
sex workers into allies, rather than prosecuting them. The role of the police
changed from being prosecutors to protectors.27 In Ghana, the police would
have to change their behaviour, and the government would have to commit
resources enabling the children to complete their education.
Domestic Violence
“If you spare the cane, you spoil the child”
Proverbs 13:24 is often recited by Ghanaian parents. According to UNICEF,
94 percent of Ghanaians concur that a child needs physical discipline in
order for a child to know right from wrong.28 In schools, HRAC found
that 92 percent of all girls and 81 percent of boys reported that they were
emotionally abused by the teacher.29 Beyond emotional abuse, corporal
punishments in school is such a huge problem that HRAC as well as several
ministers and other education agencies repeatedly have aired criticisms
of teachers using the cane on their students.30 In several cases, teachers’
punishments have broken students’ bones. In 2009, a pupil in class two was
allegedly caned to death by her teacher.31
Corporal punisment is also a problem in the home. Several of the informants I had in Ghana, when I did my fieldwork in Accra between 2011 and
2013, had marks and scars from physical punishment from their parents.32
Punish­ments also include parents forcing the child to sleep outside, exposing
42 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
them to malaria, the climate, and other dangers. A study also suggests that
children replicate the behavior of adults, where they punish their siblings
for their own misdeeds, just as they were punished by their parents. Physical
punishment is replicated from generation to generation. Doctor Afua TwumDanso reports:
[A]s children often tend to play a role in the child-rearing process it also
appeared that the importance they place on this may be due to the fact
that they are also able to punish other children, mainly siblings, very often for the same reasons their parents would—disobedience, disrespect,
misbehaviour—and thus, they have a vested interest in continuing the
practice.33
Hence, physical punishments are not necessarily viewed as negative by the
child exposed to the physical abuse. UNICEF reports the use of excessive
punishments:
We’ve had cases where children are punished for stealing 10 pesewas (5
cents) by having their fingers cut with a blade. Other children have been
burnt with an iron or beaten with an electric cable whip. Sometimes,
ground chili is put into the wounds. The correcting goes overboard.34
Furthermore, UNICEF has made progress in documenting the increase of
domestic abuse against children. Whether the increase of abuse is attributed
to more conscientious reporting by neighbours, or if it is because children are
increasingly victimised, is unknown. But the reported incidents of violence and
abuse against children rose from 4,674 cases in 2010 to 5,489 cases in 2013.35
Thus, the underlying problem in dealing with physical abuse is its social acceptance by children and parents. Prof. Afua Twum-Danso argues that some
children even saw the act of violence from their parents as an act of love.36
Nonetheless, the increase in the number of cases reported may signifies that
a shift in the attitude toward the use of violence is under way.
Life Inside Prison
Besides the fact that prison cells are often overcrowded, inmates suffer from
poor hygiene, and they lack access to basic needs. In a few instances, children have been confined with adults, a severe breach of the 1998 Children’s
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Act.37 Violations of the convention against torture38 do occur in prisons by
the officers in charge during interrogation, or by inmates. Inmates, with the
permission of the officers, have humiliated, degraded, and physically and/
or sexually abused suspects. However, this has only been reporteed in a few
isolated cases.39 More troubling, the UN reports of prisons overcrowded up
to 500 % of capacity, and reports that overall living condition for inmates
was dismal, which a UN expert characterised as an act of torture.40 As a result, Ghanaian children in the prison system frequently are brutally violated
during interrogations and time served. Although no formal allegations have
been made, there is some concern that Ghana has purchased items from
China Xinxing Import/Export Corporation, a company that Amnesty International accuses of exporting equipment used to conduct torture.41
The grim situation in Ghanaian prisons may also prevent a successful rehabilitation process, as children are often scarred for life. Much more must be
done to abate the increased risk of children falling back into criminal activity. Furthermore, what products Ghana has purchased from China Xinxing
Import/Export Corporation should be investigated.
IV. Regional Problems
Northern Region—Witch Camps
Ghanaian children across the nation are sometimes victims of superstition,
especially those that suffer from mental illness. Due to the lack of awareness surrounding mental illness, children may be placed in so-called prayer camps, where they are targeted as witchcraft practitioners. While this
phenomenon is seen across Ghana, the problem is mostly concentrated in
the Northern Region. There are at least six witch camps,42 and they house
approximately 500 children and 700 women. While a few men have been
accused of wizardry, the vast majority of the inhabitants are women and
children.43 The presence of witch camps is not an old practice, as the camps
are little more than 100 years old.44
The government has called for the abolition of these camps, and the current
Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs. Nana Oye Lithur
(former director of HRAC) addressed this issue in 2013.45 But little has been
done in practice to remedy the situation:
44 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
A woman from the town of Jillig number 2, near Gambaga camp, was
murdered after being blamed for the death of a child through witchcraft.
The child was ill, and because one day a bat flew over it, a mob believed
the illness had been caused by witchcraft. They found the woman, beat
her until she was unconscious and then set her alight. She left three
young children aged 11, 9 and 7.46
Consequently, children are stripped of their rights. They often do not have
access to food or pure water, and they live in poor housing conditions, where
they do not have access to education.
The situation is different from camp to camp. The larger camps are open for
public viewing and tourism. The state of the smaller camps that are hidden
from the public eye is dire. Some NGOs, such as Action Aid, are working inside these camps, but they need help to inform the local population about the
misinformation on witchcraft. The NGOs also need more resources for supporting people accused of witchcraft and helping them to resettle elsewhere.
The need for information to counter superstition exists not only within the
camps, but also in the wider society. Education of the public is necessary to
the closing of the camps. Caution must be exercised in the management of
the closing, as they cannot be closed overnight. If the inhabitants return to
their society or family, they could face persecution or death. Every stakeholder must be included in the dismantling of the camps.
Volta Region and the Costal Areas—Fisheries
According to several UN-institutions, such as the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), the Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC)47, and the
International Organization for Migration (IOM)48, the fishing industry is
among the worst kinds of labour for a child. In the Volta Region, and the
coastal areas, the fishing industry is among the largest and most ancient
professions.49 Hence, that industry is in need of labour, and children are used
as a resource. Adult family members in the industry may volunteer to care for
a child worker, and parents often accept the opportunity, hoping that their
children will be granted a future with better chances. However, the family
members may, at times, sell children to a third party, or take advantage of the
children who become labourers for a fishery business, according to the FAO.
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In other cases, parents under financial duress have sold their children to fisheries. The sale of children is particularly prominent when parents are indebted
to boat owners. The transaction is considered to be a form of debt bondage:
[F]orms of slavery and similar practices including sale and trafficking
of children; debt bondage; work that is likely to jeopardize the health,
safety, or morals of children; work, which exposes children to physical,
psychological or sexual abuse; children working under water, or engaged
in carrying heavy loads; work in an unhealthy environment; work under
particularly difficult conditions, such as work for long hours, or during
the night, or where the child is unreasonably confined to the employer’s
premises.50
Under these conditions, the children often suffer from violence, such as
physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.
In the fisheries, the children work in a dangerous environment where safety
equipment is rare. In consequence, several children have drown while learning how to swim, or when their feet get entangled in the fishermen’s nets.
There are also reports of fishery owners killing the children if they do not
deliver as expected:
It was also reported that some boat/gear owners end up killing some
of the children through battery, which may be termed murder or manslaughter, whichever legal experts would judge it to be.51
Further action is needed to prevent more children from engaging in violence
or experiencing violence as victims, and to inform parents about working
conditions in the fisheries.
Currently, the state has outsourced the responsibility for children in the
fisheries to NGOs such as the Association of People for Practical Life Education (APPLE), and the IOM. The IOM offers micro-loans to the fishers,
so they do not have to rely financially on child labor. Both organisations
remove the children to a government-run clinic for three months. There, the
children undergo physical and psychological tests to assess their well-being,
and to receive education. After that, the children are reunited with their
families. At the same time, APPLE tries to inform the fishers why children
should not be allowed to do this sort of work, and to make parents aware
46 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
about the dangers of fishery labour (UNODC).52 According to the U.S.
Department of Labor, the use of child labour in the fishing industry remains
a large problem, and the Ghanaian government performance is insufficient.53
Volta Region—Trokosi
Another problem present in the Volta Region is the issue of “trokosi,” or
female slave.54 The trokosi are mostly present among the Ewe, as the practise
originated in the neighbouring country, Togo. There are approximately 5000
trokosi slaves in Ghana alone. When a relative commits a crime, the family
is obliged to offer a virgin girl to the local priest practicing a local polytheistic religion.55 The offering is believed tosatisfy the gods and assuage their
anger, which otherwise would have negative consequences for the family. In
this belief system, the sacrifice of a virgin girl may even confer a blessing on
the family. The age of the girl could range from age eight to 15.
Aird describes the practice of trokosi:
The priest then exerts full ownership rights over the girl, beating her
when she tries to escape, controlling her interaction with others, demanding labor and sex from her, and denying her education, food, and basic
health services.56
The girl will usually be held as the priest’s personal possession for ten years.
But if the crime of the relative was severe, the girl may be kept as a slave for
the rest of her life. She will then die as a slave virtually never having experienced freedom. If a trokosi dies in captivity, the family must replace her with
a new trokosi. Some families have had to offer a girl to a priest for at least
five generations.
A trokosi is exploited for personal financial gain, where both the priest and
the elders who own the shrine reap the financial gains from the forced work
performed by the trokosi. That she has to work twelve hours per day, often
in the field under the scolding sun, is not unsual. Enyonam Tordzro, explains
how she became a trokosi at the age of 18:
‘They said I needed to go there to atone for the sin of someone in the
family,’ says Enyonam who is now 35. After a humiliating initiation in
which she was stripped of all her clothes representing her former life,
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she became a trokosi—the wife and slave of the shrine’s war god, and
therefore of its priest. ’I had no clothes: only a piece of cloth to cover my
privates and I had to wear a cord around my neck. I was the lowest of
the servants,’ says Enyonam, who was one of the priest’s 200 slaves.57
She further explains that she has six children, all born into servitude, and
there is no end in sight for their status to change. Enyonam also sheds light
on her experience of alienation and social stigma after servitude. When she
was saved after intense negotiations, people feared her because she was an
ex-trokosi. Even her father rejected her. Now, the fear of a contagious curse
makes her a victim of local taboo and isolates her from the surrounding society. Enyonam is the victim of a social stigma that is similar to that experienced by women and children accused of witchcraft.
Priests involved in trokosi believe they have right to rape the girls and are
resistant to stopping this practice:
One priest clearly expressed his frustration, shared by many priests, that
there is no way to replace a fetish slave’s forced sexual services when he said:
‘You can’t have sex with a cow.’58
The trokosi is denied access to education. She is financially, physically, and
sexually abused, while denied access to even the basic human rights. The
government has not successfully combated this practice of slavery.
Ashanti Region—Cocoa Plantations
Child labour in the cocoa plantations is significant. These plantations
employ 186,000 children. The plantations are mainly located in the Ashanti
Region, where most of Ghana’s cocoa industry is located. The work includes
heavy lifting, and the children come into close contact with chemicals and
tools not fit for their use.59 Furthermore, despite the enrolment of children in
schools constructed near the plantations, children continue to work in the
cocoa plantation. Poverty limits a child’s school attendance, especially during harvest when the family might need children in order to secure income.
Corporations that are active on the plantations bear a shared responsibility
to ensure that workers receive a decent wage, and to make sure that children
stay in school. The Danish company “TOM’s” has in cooperation with IBIS
48 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
tried to improve the livelihood of children and the cocoa farmer. TOM’s
accepts that children can be involved in plantation work, such as helping
the parents, but the work must not violate the child’s right to be a child,
and it must not affect the child’s education.60 TOM’s has also agreed to pay
the farmers more for their product, so that farmers can afford to send their
children to school.
V. Conclusions
There is not a grave need to secure access to basic commodities for the
children in general. Unlike many of the countries in this region, Ghanaian
families rarely suffer from food shortages, oil, water or medicine. More than
¾ of the respondents interviewed by the independent African think tank
Afrobaromenter61 stated that they had not witnessed a shortage of these
needs, and only 6 percent of respondents concurred that they often lacked
these things.62 This supports the conclusion that Ghana is a stable country,
where people enjoy access to basic commodities.
The Ghanaian government has shown interest in strengthening enforcement of children’s rights on the ground. It is making free education for all
possible, and the government has demonstrated an interest in closing the
witch camps by appointing an outspoken human rights activist as Minister
for Gender, Children and Social Protection. In December, 2014, for the
first time in modern history, the government closed down a witch camp.63
Persistent implementation of official policy in this way is the key element to
improving the lives of the most downtrodden children of Ghana.
rsr
Mathias Søgaard has an M.A. in African Studies at the University
of Copenhagen with a minor in Human Rights in Africa, and BA in
Religious Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. He lived in
Ghana for a total of two years, divided into multiple stays. The first stay
occurred in 2006 and the last one in 2013. His knowledge of Ghana is
thereby based on both personal experience and academic credentials.
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End Notes
1 LO National Labour Law Profile: Ghana, http://www.ilo.org/ifpdial/information-resources/national-labour-law-profiles/WCMS_158898/lang--en/index.htm.
2 FAO, 2001, http://www.fao-ilo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/fao_ilo/pdf/WorkshopFisheries2010/WFPapers/DAfenyaduChild_LabourGhana.pdf.
3 Children’s Act § 6(3)a, 1998 http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/WEBTEXT/56216/65194/E98GHA01.htm.
4 Children’s Act § 8(1), 1998 http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/WEBTEXT/56216/65194/E98GHA01.htm.
5 CHRAJ, What We Do http://www.chrajghana.com/?page_id=27
6 CHRAJ, 2012, Challenges and Prospects, pages 10-11.
http://www.chrajghana.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/anna_speech.pdf.
7 Eight reasons why education is important to achieve the MDGs http://www.
unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/education-for-all/education-and-the-mdgs/eight-reasons-to-achieve-the-mdgs/.
8 Ghana Gov., 2014, A Progressive Free SHS to Be Introduced For 2015/2016
Academic Year http://ghana.gov.gh/index.php/2012-02-08-08-32-47/regional/4949-aprogressive-free-shs-to-be-introduced-for-2015-2016-academic-year.
9 My Joy Online 2014, ”Report: 404 Schools in Northern Region have no
teachers,” http://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2014/april-25th/report-404-schools-innorthern-region-have-no-teachers.php.
10 Modern Ghana, 2012, Teacher Absenteeism Cause Of Poor BECE Performance In Northern Region http://www.modernghana.com/news/394309/1/teacher-absenteeism-cause-of-poor-bece-performance.html.
11 IBIS, 2012, Dårlige skoler skaber børnearbejde (Poor Education Creates Child
Labour) http://ibis.dk/articles/darlige-skoler-skaber-bornearbejde/.
12 My Joy Online, 2011 Accra schools under trees! http://opinion.myjoyonline.
com/pages/feature/201110/74794.php.
13 In 2010, the government introduced the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS)
to curb corruption, and to secure wages were paid on time. However, the SSSS
has collapsed on several occasions, leading to strikes by numerous public servants
such as teachers, professors, doctors and pharmacists. SeeThink Africa Press,
2011, http://thinkafricapress.com/ghana/doctors-declare-nationwide-strike, and
Equal Times, 2013, http://www.equaltimes.org/ghana-hit-by-wave-of-public-sectorstrikes#.U_MaEkuMXwI.
14 Transparency International, 2013, Global Corruption Report—Education, pp.
290-291.
15 Education News, 2013, Ghana’s Education Sector Rife with Corruption as
Parents Pay Bribes http://www.educationnews.org/international-uk/ghana-educati50 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
on-sector-rife-with-corruption-as-parents-pay-bribes/.
16 “Gender Violence in Schools—Ghana,” https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/
gateway/file.php?name=gender-violence-in-schools-ghana-newsletter3.pdf&site=320
(2004).
17 HRAC, ”Teenage Pregnancy and Girl’s Education,” http://www.childrenofpotentials.org/teenage-pregnancy-and-girls-education.
18 Akyeampong, Kwame, et al., “School Drop Out: Patterns, Causes, Changes
and Policies” (2014).
19 HRAC, Teenage Pregnancy and Girl’s Education http://www.childrenofpotentials.org/teenage-pregnancy-and-girls-education.
20 Miescher, Stephan F., Speaking Sensibly: Men as Elders in the Twentieth Century
in Making Men in Ghana, Indiana University Press, pp. 153-199 (2005).
21 Boakye-Boaten, Agya. 2008, Street Children: Experiences from the Streets of
Accra, Issue 8, Research Journal of Internatıonal Studies http://adamfoghana.com/
data/documents/Experiences-from-the-streets.pdf.
22 Daily Guide, 2014, GAC, 5,720 Female Sex Workers Living With HIV, http://
www.dailyguideghana.com/5720-female-sex-workers-living-with-hiv/, and Ghana
Integrity Initiative, 2011, The “Voice of the People” Survey, table 3, page 8, http://
www.tighana.org/giipages/publication/Voice%20of%20the%20people%20Survey.pdf.
23 Ghana Integrity Initiative, 2011,The “Voice of the People” Survey (A National
Survey of Corruption in Ghana).
24 MacDarling, 2011, “Because of you”: Blackmail and Extortion of Gay and
Bisexual Men in Ghana, in “Nowhere to Turn - Blackmail and Extortion of LGBT
People in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Published by IGLHRC pp. 60-74 ,
http://www.iglhrc.org/sites/default/files/484-1.pdf.
25 Live News, 2014, Accra: Police Arrests 33 Prostitutes; 2 Males Included
http://233livenews.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/accra-police-arrests-33-prostitutesarrested-2-males-included/.
26 Tamale, Sylvia, 2011, Paradoxes of Sex Worker and Sexuality in Modern-Day
Uganda, (ed.) Sylvia Tamale in African Sexualities - A Reader, Pambazuka Press.
27 2008, Report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee on the Operation of
the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. pp. 121-2.
28 UNICEF, 2013, The State of the World’s Children, page 133 http://www.
unicef.org/guyana/SOWC_Report_2013.pdf
29 HRAC, 2013, School children suffer physical violence from teachers and peers
http://www.ghananewsagency.org/human-interest/school-children-suffer-physicalviolence-from-teachers-and-peers-hrac--57822
30 HRAC, 2013, Educationist admonishes teachers to apply canes sparingly
http://www.ghananewsagency.org/education/educationist-admonishes-teachers-to-
www.thehumanprospect.com 51
apply-canes-sparingly-67358
31 Ghana Pundit, 2009, Teacher Canes Pupil To Death
http://ghanapundit.blogspot.dk/2009/07/teacher-canes-pupil-to-death.html
32 Søgaard, Mathias, 2013, Consequences of Imposing the Homo/Hetero Binary and
the Prospect For Decriminalisation of MSM in Contemporary Ghana, Centre for African Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, https://www.academia.
edu/5675179/MA_Thesis_Are_There_Homosexuals_in_Ghana_and_Will_Ghana_Follow_in_the_Footsteps_of_Uganda
33 Twum-Danso, Afua, 2010, Children’s Perceptions of Physical Punishment in Ghana,
page 65
http://www.icyrnet.net/UserFiles/File/Children_Perceptions_of_%20Physical_%20Punishment_Ghana.pdf
34 UNICEF, 2013, In Ghana, changing the belief in violent discipline
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ghana_70138.html
35 UNICEF, 2013, Child protection in Ghana is worsening
http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201304/103803.php (citing the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit).
36 Twum-Danso, Afua, 2010, Children’s Perceptions of Physical Punishment in Ghana,
page 44. http://www.icyrnet.net/UserFiles/File/Children_Perceptions_of_%20Physical_%20
Punishment_Ghana.pdf.
37 Children’s Act, 1998, http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/WEBTEXT/56216/65194/
E98GHA01.htm.
38 The act of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, abbreviated CIDT.
39 Citi FM, 2014, UN report condemns standards in Ghana’s prison http://www.citifmonline.com/2014/03/09/un-report-condemns-standards-in-ghanas-prisons/.
40 OHCHR, 2013, Ghana’s criminal justice and mental health practices need critical
attention to be more humane, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.
aspx?NewsID=13990#sthash.nELJayoT.dpuf.
41 Amnesty International, 2014, China’s Trade in Tools of Torture and Repression,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA17/042/2014/en/7dcccd64-15c2-423a-93dd2841687f6655/asa170422014en.pdf.
42 The names of the six witch camps are Gambaga, Kukuo, Gnani, Bonyase, Nabuli and
Kpatinga.
43 Igwe, Leo, Aug. 17, 2014, Witch Hunts in Black Communities, Ghanaweb, http://
www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=321575.
44 Action Aid, ”Condemned without trial - women and witchcraft in Ghana,” http://
www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/doc_lib/ghana_report_single_pages.pdf (2012).
45 Ghana Gov., 2013, Hon. Nana Oye Lithur Meets With Stakeholders of Alleged
52 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2
Witches, page 5. http://www.ghana.gov.gh/index.php/2012-02-08-08-32-47/generalnews/4005-hon-nana-oye-lithur-meets-with-stakeholders-of-alleged-witches.
46 Action Aid, ”Condemned without trial - women and witchcraft in Ghana,”
http://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/doc_lib/ghana_report_single_pages.
pdf (2012).
47 UNODC, Child trafficking in Ghana, http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/child-trafficking-in-ghana.html.
48 IOM, Partner with us and support the fishing children of Lake Volta, http://
www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/what-we-do/countertrafficking/support-trafficked-children-in-ghana.html?.
49 FAO, 4. Chapter 4, Lake Volta, Ghana, pp. 85-149, http://www.fao.org/docrep/015/i1969e/i1969e02.pdf.
50 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2010, Child Labour
in Fisheries and Aquaculture, a Ghanaian Perspective, Afenyadu, Dela, p. 3 http://
www.fao-ilo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/fao_ilo/pdf/WorkshopFisheries2010/WFPapers/DAfenyaduChild_LabourGhana.pdf.
51 Ibid, p. 3.
52 FAO, Child trafficking in Ghana http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/
child-trafficking-in-ghana.html.
53 United States Department of Labor, 2013 Findings on the Worst Forms of
Child Labor, http://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/ghana.htm.
54 Trokosi takes place in particularly the Eastern part of Ghana, Togo, Benin and
the Southeastern part of Nigeria. Added up, it is believed that as many as 35,000
girls are used as trokosi-slaves.
55 There definitions of religion are multiple. The most common one is the one by
Edward Tylor: the belief in spiritual beings. However, Tylor overlooks the aspect of
rituals and socialisation be deducing religion to a belief. Therefore, when I apply the
term “religion”, I use religion in relation to the understanding by Bruce Lincoln: 1)
A discourse whose concerns transcend the human, temporal, and contingent, and
thus claims for itself a similarly transcendent status 2) A set of practices whose goal
is to produce a proper world and/or proper human subjects, as defined by a religious
discourse to which these practices are connected. 3) A community whose members
construct their identity with reference to a religious discourse and its attendant
practices. 4) An institution that regulates religious discourse, practice, and community, reproducing them over time and modifying them as necessary, while asserting
their eternal validity and transcendent value. Lincoln, Bruce, 2003, Holy Terrors:
Thinking about Religion after September 11, Chapter 1.
56 Aird, Sarah C., 1999, Ghana’s Slaves to the Gods, Human Rights Brief 7(1),
http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/v7i1/ghana.htm.
57 Mistiaen, Veronique, 2013, Vrgin wives of the fetish Gods - Ghana’s trokosi
tradition, http://www.trust.org/item/20131003122159-3cmei/.
www.thehumanprospect.com 53
58 Aird, Sarah C., 1999, Ghana’s Slaves to the Gods, Human Rights Brief 7(1),
http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/v7i1/ghana.htm.
59 Irin News, 2011, Efforts to reduce child labour on cocoa plantations beginning
to pay off, http://www.irinnews.org/report/93805/ghana-efforts-to-reduce-child-labour-on-cocoa-plantations-beginning-to-pay-off.
60 TOM’s, Vores Ansvar (Our Responsibilitiy), http://www.anthonberg.dk/voresansvar/Fokus%20på%20børnearbejde.aspx (Danish).
61 Afrobaromenter interviews respondents face to face using the native tongue of
the respondent, and the person must be a citizen age 18 or older. A national sample
is minimum N = 1200. Sampling Principles, http://www.afrobarometer.org/surveyand-methods/sampling-principles.
62 2013, Afrobarometer, “After a Decade of Growth in Africa, Little Change in
Poverty at the Grassroots”
http://www.afrobarometer.org/files/documents/policy_brief/ab_r5_policybriefno1.pdf.
63 AllAfrica, Dec. 17, 2014, Ghana: Government Closes Down Bonyase Alleged
Witch Camp, http://allafrica.com/stories/201412180697.html.
54 The Human Prospect Volume 4 Number 2