Children’s Rights in Ghana
This article was published as part of the Osgoode chapter of Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights (CLAIHR) media series, which aims to promote an awareness of international human rights issues. To get involved, visit CLAIHR at http://claihr-osgoode.weebly.com/
It is no secret that the ideals law strives to achieve and what occurs in reality are often vastly different. International law, and by extension the thrust for universal human rights, is an idealistic legal structure that is often critiqued for providing little more than a platform for political discourse. Whether this is the case or not, providing a voice for the most vulnerable members in society is valuable in itself. This summer I was an ILP legal fellow at Defence for Children International (DCI) in Kumasi, Ghana. Beyond providing a fulfilling understanding of the human rights movement, my experience of the country and of the NGO I worked for during my three months abroad illuminated several ideas about the fight for universal children’s rights. I left Toronto skeptical but excited: how could a European-based NGO such as DCI make a difference for children in a country like Ghana, where the culture is entirely different? My answer came in stages.
Socio-Economic Conditions in Ghana
When I arrived in Ghana I immediately became aware of the huge wave of social criticism directed towards the government currently in power. The nation is greatly mistrustful of their political leaders and publically scrutinizes them for corruption, misleading promises, and a bleak economic situation. During my time in Ghana, I witnessed peaceful public demonstrations against the government for shutting off the electricity, every single week. These reoccurring protests and the amount of political discourse publically broadcast were new to me; I come from a largely complacent populace where political conversations take place mainly in philosophical discussions and university classrooms. Walking around in a city like Kumasi does not make you feel unsafe. Rather, what you sense is economic survival: everyone is just trying to live another day, make ends meet, and hopefully put some food on the table. Besides being an extraordinarily warm and friendly people, Ghanaians are exceptionally resourceful, finding ways to make money out of small businesses at the side of the road.
Children in Ghana
Unfortunately, due to the economic situation in the country, most children are working side jobs after school to support their families, without protective guidelines in place to ensure their wellbeing. While Ghana has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and even has their own Children’s Act (1998), the economic situation prevents children from having what we in the West would consider “normal childhoods.” It is here that the gap between international human rights legislation and reality is most evident, as government agencies struggle to keep track of abused children and offer them protection. Part of my work with DCI was to walk around in the city and ask children why they were in the markets selling water in baskets, for instance, as opposed to being in school. On a specific visit we went to the Wood Village in Kumasi, where we identified some children whose caretakers promised they would enroll them in school starting in September, and whom the organization would later monitor to ensure this actually occurred. The main reason caretakers usually gave us for not enrolling their children in school was—not surprisingly—insufficient resources. The economic situation in Ghana makes it very difficult for an NGO like DCI to truly make an impact in most children’s lives. This means that DCI ends up being helpful only to the most vulnerable children, the ones that need immediate help in order to escape an abusive situation or whose basic human needs are not being met.
In my experience, government agencies in Ghana are particularly inefficient at dealing with human rights crises. During my time at DCI, I came upon a case where a young girl was in immediate need of protection and housing. Unfortunately, her case was delayed as we were told by the local children’s welfare agency to call again in a few days because no one was available to investigate the case and help her at the moment. If not for two of the teachers at her school who offered her a place to live, this young girl would have had to sleep on the streets, exposed to a variety of dangers. From a practical perspective DCI are not prepared to do much more than connect children in need with resources that could potentially aid them, whether Legal Aid, welfare agencies, employment opportunities, police, or hospitals.
The Bottom Line
What can an NGO like DCI do then, to improve the lives of children in Ghana? When it comes to achieving universal children’s rights, it comes down to money and distribution of power. One of these factors is more easily achieved than the other in the fight for children’s rights: the distribution of power. We live in a world where money indisputably means power; however, one thing that can move money and shift power is mainstream culture. What DCI is most focused on is raising awareness of children’s rights and the propagation of concepts related to children’s rights such as gender, empowerment, violence, prevention of pregnancy guidelines, and so on. For instance, at one conference I attended, a representative of the Gender Ministry led discussions centered on the definition and prevention of gendered violence against female children and women. This was a workshop centered on shifting cultural assumptions about femininity and masculinity towards a more accepting and inclusive value system. A common criticism of the type of work DCI does, regarding the shift in mainstream thought, is that it justifies Western nations encroaching on traditional cultures to replace them with our own Eurocentric philosophy and that this is harmful to the people of Ghana. In my experience, however, the majority of Ghanaians were grateful to learn about how to become more “Western,” and children ultimately still benefit from having a voice, as opposed to never having their rights championed.
Is international children’s rights law anything more than a naming-blaming-claiming system full of ideals that have little to do with reality? Ultimately, when the focus is on redistributing power by shifting the mainstream culture to accept children’s rights as a precept that society is unwilling to compromise on, the effort is always worth pursuing.