Mr Abdulai Stephen Dapaah, the Jaman North District Director of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development has expressed concern about parental irresponsibility towards children in the district. The situation, he added, was thereby contributing to streetism and rising cases of teenage pregnancies in the district. Mr Dapaah told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at Sampa, the district capital, that teenage pregnancy was high in the Ghana-Côte d’Ivoire border communities in the district. He explained the rise in cases of divorce was partly contributing to the problems, indicating the Department was recording disturbing cases of child neglect and abandonment. Mr Dapaah said it was difficult for the Department to shelter some of the abandoned children because of lack of funding and appealed to government to set up a special fund, purposely dedicated to facilitate the proper upbringing and development of neglected and abandoned children. He expressed concern about child labour and exploitation in the cashew growing communities in the district, saying during cashew seasons many parents used their children for exploitative labour to the detriment of their education. Mr Dapaah said concerted approaches were required to solve the problems and thus implored civil society and non-governmental organisations to intervene and help to intensify public education in the border communities. He said the Department also needed motorbikes and a pick-up vehicle to enable personnel to reach out to the hard-to-reach communities to attend to cases of child neglect alongside with increase of public education for citizens to understand the mandate of the Department.
Source: Ghana News Agency
