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Lawyer and Human Rights advocate is blaming government for the increasing spate of child labour in the country. Nana Oye Lithur told Joy News the government is not doing enough to help the poor, deprived and vulnerable groups in the society. Her comments follow Joy News’ campaign against Child Labour in which a nine year old girl Rahiatu Braimah in the Upper West Region is said to be selling pure water to fend for herself and her old grandmother. Joy News’ Upper West correspondent said it is the dream of the young girl to pursue education to the highest level but even what to eat is a problem for her and her grandmother. Joy FM has been raising funds to ensure that little Rahiatu fulfils her dreams of acquiring education but that obviously cannot be the panacea to resolving the many cases of child labour with its attendant problems littered across the country. Asked who must take responsibility for the increasing cases of child labour, in spite of the many government intervention in the education sector, Nana Oye Lithur said: “I will put the blame squarely before the government of Ghana because we must all acknowledge that there are some people who are so poor that they cannot help but get their children to work to fend for themselves and for such poor people it is the responsibility of Government of Ghana to ensure that the children receive health care; receive education and also they receive cloth and adequate shelter.” She said poverty has become so endemic irrespective of whatever social intervention has sought to introduce. Oye Lithur narrated the story of a young man in La, a suburb of Accra whose parents could not afford to feed him. She said even though there is the Free Compulsory Basic Education (FCUBE) firmly entrenched in the 1992 Constitution the parents could not afford the auxiliary fees being charged by the school. “So yes we have FCUBE in the constitution of Ghana but we still have parents who can’t afford to pay these …unofficial fees that the schools charge." She said it now a “broken record” for advocacy groups to campaign for social welfare groups to be adequately resourced in order for them to take care of the under-privileged in the society. Whilst applauding the Livelihood Empowerment Programme (LEAP) being implemented by the government she said it is not enough to ameliorate the state of suffering by poor in the society.

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.