Executive director of Child Online Africa, Awo Aidam Amenyam, has urged political parties to refrain from including children in publicity campaigns for political purposes.

According to her, exposing young people's photos in the media during political campaigns can have detrimental effects when things go wrong.

Speaking in an interview with JoyNews, she said, “This results in these people hiding themselves at the end of the day or having to look for shelter because it is something they had done without concerns or repercussions that it will bring on them.”

Mrs Amenyam stated that, using children in the media for political campaigns without their ability to defend themselves violates their rights.

She said that this exposure can subject children to public harassment and various forms of mistreatment, which should be avoided.

According to her, some of these political contents can lead to the children being harassed publicly and accosted in all manner of ways.

“This year, world vision Ghana and Child Africa Online thought that it is important we bring this discussion early so that people are aware that in crafting their political strategies for campaign, they leave out children and even if they want to engage children, there is a way to engage children, not engaging children in front of camera and putting them out there."

Mrs Amenyam suggested that engaging children respectfully and responsibly for political campaigns would be the ethical approach.

“There is a way to engage them in such a way that you get their input into your discourse. If that is what you want and that will be the ethical way to go about it rather than building footprints for these young people which will go a long way to affecting them either in their quest to seek for employment in the future and other engagements for that matter.”

She noted that it is the responsibility of every political party to consider and respect the laws of the country before undertaking any actions.

“We do not need to engage them individually but we just need to bring to the fore that this law is there. If you engage in what is unethical, there is a way we can engage or react which you might not like. It’s more like a cautionary statement for now but as time goes on we will figure out how to react to some of these occurrences.”

“The point is, children below 18 are not supposed to be used in their political campaigns. If they do not have the right to vote, why do you want to put them forward to campaign for you?”