According to the latest report of the International Labor Organization (ILO), 246 million children between the ages of 5-17 engage in child labor. The majority of the world's 211 million working children between the ages of 5-19 are found in the Asia-Pacific region (127.3 million or 60%), Sub-Saharan Africa (48 million or 23%), Latin America and the Caribbean (17.4 million or 8%), and the Middle East and North Africa (13.4 million or 6%). The rest can be found in both transitional and developed economies. Asia has the highest total number of child workers, but Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportion of working children relative to population.
They work under hazardous conditions in brick factories, mines, carpet-weaving centers, leather tanning shops, glass and match factories, and plantations growing products such as coffee, tea, tobacco, etc. They work as domestic servants and as scavengers. And because they work long hours under abusive conditions, they are not able to obtain the education necessary to improve their lives. Furthermore, their health is often severely damaged through years of exposure to hazardous materials and substances. Many, if they survive, are crippled, mangled, and deformed before they are able to properly mature.
These children are into stone quarrying, they work long hours under severe weather temperatures in order to sustain themselves and forgetting to acquire education due to educational cost as a barrier and CESA International believes it is a hazardous child labor. Child labor is seriously endangering children’s immediate health and safety, as well as their health status later in life. This is particularly the case for the children in the worst forms of child labor. Child labor also compromises children’s ability to enroll and stay in school, and to benefit from the time they do spend in the classroom.
Article 32 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that:
“State Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development”. The activity of these children is contrary to what is stated by the article and because of this, CESA International is using global giving platform to help build bright future for these children. The benefits to ending child labor cannot be overstated.
Children who grow up free from child labor have the opportunity to realize fully their rights to education, leisure and healthy development, in turn helping them to make a successful transition into decent work upon completing their education and to be contributing members of society as adults.
CESA International is embarking on “fight against child labor” to eradicate child labor in Greater Accra specifically Bulemi. The children engage in all forms of child labor activities like stone quarrying, selling on the streets, practicing vile things among others. CESA International is appealing for your support to an amount of US$ 5,000 to embark on the project to give these children a bright future.
CESA expects the project to impact the lives of 50 boys and girls with an outcome of benefitting communities, families and Ghana at large.
The estimated budget of the proposed project is detailed in the table below;
Planned activities / No of Days / No of item/person / Cost per/person / US $ AmtSchool Fees / (per term) 74 / 50 / 16 / 800
Uniforms / - / 50 / 21 / 1,050
5 textbooks each per child / - / 50 / 46 / 2,300
School bag for each child / 50 / 17 / 850
Total / 5,000