A Community Development Officer of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, Linda Owusu Sekyere has urged parents and guardians to spend more time with their children to help model them into better citizens.
She said parent must show love and warmth to their children because such gestures make them very happy and stop them for seeking such affections from other people which mostly led to them falling in the wrong hands, resulting to undesired consequences.
She said working to earn money to take care of the economic needs of children was equally important as spending time and showing affections to them since it also helped with their psychological needs. “Stop the habit of leaving the home early without properly engaging your children and coming back late,” she added.
Mrs. Sekyere who made these remarks at an engagement with market women at the Agbogloshie Market by the of the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) as part the 2021 International Women’s Day celebration added that parent should stop making the excuse that they do not have time for their wards and make time for them.
According her, parent must also learn to listen to their wards because the children know better what their needs were and should desist from imposing their will on them. This, she said, would help build confidence in children which would help them to become outspoken on issues especially in instances where they were abused.
For her part, the Head of the Human Trafficking Secretariat at MoGCSP, Abena Annobea Asare, said a lot of mothers, because they claim they do not have time, gave their wards to other people to be taken care without even checking on them.
She said a lot of these children were abused by the people they have been entrusted to with some being forced to engaged in all forms of domestic child labour and others being trafficked to other countries to become slaves and prostitutes.
The International Women’s Day which is celebrated every 8th March was declared by the United Nations (UN) to recognize the very important role women economically, politically and socially play in the national development efforts of countries.
One of the main objectives of the day is to draw attention on the need to accelerate efforts toward achieving gender equality across the globe and this year’s commemoration is under the theme: “Women in leadership; achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world” with the campaign tag #choosetochallenge#.
