Mr Bright Appiah, Executive Director of Child’s Rights International, a nongovernmental organisation, has called for the involvement of children in matters that concerned their well-being to ensure that their needs were addressed.
   

He said children should not longer be regarded as recipients of development but as stakeholders who had an input in deciding on matters that affected them.

Mr Appiah was speaking at a forum to mark the 20th Anniversary celebration of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) at Asesewa in the Upper Manya Krobo District.

He said there were pressing questions that needed to be answered of why the voices of children were silent when public policies were being co nsidered by Parliament and State institutions.

"School buildings are constructed by District Assemblies to be used by children without their inputs," he observed.

Mr Appiah said even in a country like Ghana whose democratic values are based on participation and public inputs, there were no proper mechanisms that allowed children to participate in the decision-making process.

He expressed worry about situations when children have to walk three to seven miles to school coupled with the burden of shopping for families’ groceries and carrying them home.

Mr Appiah said it was gradually becoming a yearly norm and practice for children to fail in their examinations to the extent that a whole school would score zero per cent after four years in nursery, six years in primary and three years junior high school and wondered what the future would be for those children when they were old.

He expressed his gratitude to Plan Ghana, Action Aid and Nokia for their support towards the organization of the programme.

Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, Minster of Health, in a speech read on his behalf observed that children constituted the future manpower of the country and, therefore, needed to be brought up in good health so that they would constitute a healthy and formidable workforce.

Dr Kunbuor said for the realization of that vision it was important to start early and deliver services that would ensure optimal survival, growth and development of children during their early years of life.

He noted with satisfaction that Ghana had made a lot of progress in reducing deaths in children under the age of five from 111/100,000 live births in 2003 to 80/100,000 as recorded by the 2008 Demographic and Health Survey.

"Over the same period Ghana’s infant mortality rate dropped from 64 to 50/100,000 live births".

He said those successes notwithstanding, the country still had to intensify its efforts in order to attain the millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of 40/1,000,000 live births for under five mortality by 2015.

"We also have a lot to do to reduce our maternal mortality and ensure that pregnancy and childbirth become safe for women in Ghana," he said.

Dr Kunbuor gave the assurance that the Ministry would continue to work with all stakeholders including children themselves to overcome the barriers to child survival, growth and development.

Mr Stephen Amoanor Kwao, Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, in an address read on his behalf said it was time to recognize that children were citizens of today and that they are rights holders with corresponding responsibilities that provided critical insight, energy, idealism and innovation to the world.

He observed that too often children’s voices were silenced and their subjective experiences were relegated to the periphery saying that it was time to recognize that children played a unique and central role in building and sustaining a culture of peace and human rights.

Mr Amoanor Kwao said children had great potential to effect positive change in their families, communities, societies and the broader world.

The Convention on the Rights of the child came into force in 1989 and represented a milestone achievement as it was the first legally binding international instrument to be incorporated into the range of human rights for children

GNA/AMA