Accra, Nov. 28, – The Ministry of
Gender, Children and Social Protection has launched a programme to eradicate
streetism and ensure that every citizen has quality access to social services
which meets acceptable standards.
The initiative dubbed:”#Operation
get off the Street now for a Better Life” was developed based on the findings
and on the recommendations made in the Mapping and Analysis of the Child
Protection System Report on strengthening Child and Family Welfare System.
The project is not a one-off
event but a process towards identifying the numbers of persons on the streets,
profiling, integrating them with their parents, caregivers and community.
It will be implemented in the
three Phases, namely the short term, medium term and long term to support the
achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), most importantly Goal
1, 2 and 5.
The initial phase which will be
one year will include Public Sensitization and the intended target group,
mapping of hotspot areas and identification of shelters across the regions,
data collection, management and analysis, re-integration activities of children
of school going age, skills training and sending Persons With Disability to
rehabilitation centres.
The second phase which is also a
two-year term will include linking street persons to social protection
interventions such as, LEAP program, National Health Insurance Scheme, Ghana
School feeding program, Free SHS package; linking people on the street to
acquire technical and vocational skills for employment and job creation and
employable interventions such as Youth Enterprise Support, One Village, One Dam
and One District, One Factory.
The last phase will include
training of persons on the street to take advantage of reforestation,
hospitality industry, the Youth Employment Agency and Planting for Food and
Jobs.
Ms Otiko Afisa Djaba, Minister of
Gender, Children and Social Protection at a Press Conference in Accra on
Tuesday named the target group as the Kayayie (Head Porters), hawkers, children
beggars and those contracted to push disabled people and beggars who are
adults.
Others are Persons with
Disabilities and mental health problems, families on the streets, Displaced
persons (international migrants) and begging contractors.
She said the increasing number of
persons on the streets was an indicator of our weakened extended family value
system and that the ill-effects and prevalence rate must be brought under
control.
“Statistical evidence has
revealed that there is approximately about 300,000 persons on the street,” she
said.
Ms Djaba said the prevalence
persons living on and off our streets was a measure that our governance
structure and interventions was inadequately addressing the need of the
vulnerable.
She said Ghana has developed many
laws and policies such as the Children’s Act 1998 (Act 516), Children’s
(Amendment’s Act, Act 937 of 2016), Juvenile Justice Act (Act 635), Domestic
Violence (Act 732), Child and Family welfare policy and the Juvenile Justice
Policy.
“Others are Human Trafficking Act
(Act 692), Persons with Disability Act 2006 (Act 715), Beggars and Destitute
Act (NLCD 392 of 1969), Mental Health Act 2012 and so on. However, the laws
have not been effectively implemented. As a result, there is the need to
intensify sensitization and enforcement of these laws and implementation of
policies and programmes.”
The Gender Minister said a census
conducted on street children by the Department of Social Welfare Department
under the Ministry in the Greater Accra Region in 2011 discovered that about
60,495 children live and work on the street with 66 and 18 per cent migrant
children urban dwellers respectively.
GNA
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