OPINION
8 Obiter Dicta
What It Really Comes Down To
Children’s rights in Ghana
cristina candea › contributor
I
t 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
i n ph i losoph ical 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.
ê Child working in woodshop Wood Village, Kumasi. Photo credit: Cristina Candea
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 nation is greatly mistrustful
of their political leaders...”
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)