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Over 20 percent of children in each region of the country are engaged in one form of child labour or the other, Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Bright Wireku-Brobey, has disclosed.

Speaking at the media lunch of the 2017 World Day Against Child Labour, he said “child labour continues to be prevalent in Ghana; every fifth child is affected and more than one in 10 children are engaged in the worst forms, particularly hazardous work.

“There are child labourers in every region of the country and apart from the Greater Accra and Central Regions; each of the other regions has more than 20 percent of children as victims.”

The Minister also disclosed the sector ministry has decided to mobilize external resources to implement the NAP2 because the lack of resources was the main challenge the ministry encountered during the implementation of the NPA1 and, thereby, could not achieve some of the set objectives.

“It is believed that the successful implementation of the NPA2 will achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.7, which requires all states to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, eliminate worst forms of child labour, social conflicts and disasters,” he observed.

Wireku-Brobey added that child labour, if not curbed, would have devastating impact on people in general and children in particular.

On education the Minister stated that over 60 percent of children not attending school are engaged in child labour.

“With those attending school many are combining work with school attendance and this is affecting the quality of education they get”, he averred.

The Ghana Labour Standards Survey (GLSS) has also revealed that almost 77 percent of children involved in child labour in the country are engaged in fishing and agriculture.

“Majority of the children worked as skilled agricultural and fishery workers while 14.9 percent worked in the services sector,” the survey, released in August, 2014, stated.

The 76.8 percent figure translates to 1,506,740 children involved in the menace.

The almost two million children indicated as child labourers in the GLSS 6, is an increase over the Ghana Child Labour Survey (GCLS 2003), which reported a figure of 1.27 million out of a population of over 6 million children.

The survey further revealed that although a higher population of males (83.2 percent) was engaged as skilled agricultural and fishery workers.