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The members of the Winrock International Partnership for Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture , namely Mate-Masie and Fine Flavour, in the Offinso South Municipality of the Ashanti Region has pledge to support cocoa farmers on focusing child labour in agriculture and reiterates it’s commitment towards the elimination of all forms of child labour in agriculture.
The UN has declared 12th June every year as the International day for the Elimination of Child Labour.
More than ever, child labour is a pressing concern in need of urgent attention of the international community.
Without immediate action, the sustainable development goal (target 8.7) of eliminating all forms of child labour by 2025 will be beyond reach.
To compensate for the resulting income losses and labour shortages, many farms make more use of family workers.
While understandable from a poor family’s perspective, children exposed to long working hours (i.e, herding cattle), occupational hazards (e.g., from chemical pesticides), and not being able to attend school, will be harmed in terms of their health and development.
This will have lasting consequences for their future opportunities in life.
Speaking to Akoma fm news in an interview, the director of Winrock International, Mr. Fidelis Yapel said child labour in agriculture is a cause of poverty.
According to him, children are being increasingly involved in working activities to compensate labour gaps and income losses in food and agricultural production.
“This year, we will step -up our efforts to strengthen the capacities of a wide range of agricultural actors to include child labour prevention in their work,” He emphasized.
Meanwhile, The General Manager of Fine Flavour Cooperative in the Offinso South Municipality, Mr. Samuel Akosah said that, the company has provided some tricycles to the cocoa farmers in three rural communities within Offinso South to help in their farming activities.
This according him, will help the farmers to transport their their farm products to home and market without worrying their children to carry them.
He then pleaded with parents to help them curb child labour from society.
Kwame Yeboah/Kumasi.
