The Project Co-ordinator of Right To Play, Mr Samuel Oppong Kwabia, has advised parents to avoid abusing their children to enable them develop their potentials.
He said cordial engagement between parents and children had extreme benefits, and stressed that parents could help curb the incidence of teenage pregnancies if they opened up to their children.
At two separate fora in the Upper West Region to sensitise parents about child rights, Mr Oppong Kwabia said child abuse negatively affected the development of children generally, and had the tendency to inhibit their academic and mental growth.
"We must relate to children in a manner that will allow them to develop their potentials by being able to raise questions, advance arguments and express themselves freely generally without being disrespectful," he said at Ducie in the Wa East District.
Right to Play is a child rights centred non-governmental organization (NGO).
Forced marriages et al
He said Right To Play had identified early and forced marriages, teenage pregnancies, elopement and child neglect as the major abuses against children in the Upper West Region.
Most girls, he said, fell victim to defilement and consequently teenage pregnancies and added that victims of such abuses, eventually dropped out of school.
He said Right To Play and another child rights-based NGO, Plan Ghana, were collaborating with the Department of Social Welfare and the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service to curb the abuse of children in 33 communities in the Wa Municipality and Wa East district.
"The project intends to prevent and respond to abuse and violence against children in these areas, and to ensure a protective environment at the community, institutional, district, regional and national level for children.
Defilement and rape
Mr Oppong said 16 cases of teenage pregnancy had been reported since June 2014, with nearly all the cases involving defilement.
Between January and March 2015, he said, 11 cases of teenage pregnancy, three cases of rape and several child abuse cases were reported to his outfit.
He said the defilement cases were quickly referred to DOVVSU for the necessary action.
The Upper West Regional Director of the Department for Social Welfare, Mr G.S Naah, encouraged parents to be interested in the activities of their children in order not to be overtaken by events that could ruin their future.
"When we show interest in the daily activities of our children, we will get to know what bothers them and they can easily tell us their problems and concerns. Otherwise we will only be faced with problems after the children had committed the wrong acts," he said.
At the Ducie event, the children enacted a drama about the abuses they suffer in their homes.
At Yaala in the Wa East, the district police commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police Eric Anaba, stressed that cases of rape, defilement and early marriage among girls below 17 years were rife in the district.
Officials of Right to Play later donated sets of football jerseys to basic schools in the communities.
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