From dawn to midnight

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Category: Youth News

Created on Tuesday, 19 June 2012 00:00

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From dawn to midnight

More than 215 million children worldwide are forced to work in order to survive. This year's international day against child labour is focusing on their plight. The sitatuation is particularly bad in Burkina Faso.

At a tender age of nine, Zenabou Iiboudou started to work as a domestic servant in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou. For seven years, she had to endure the hardship of working as a child.

Now at age 20, she acts as a "big sister" for the girls supported by "Terres des Hommes," a Swiss foundation. The organization helps young girls who are employed as domestic servants attend vocational training and secondary school. Zeinabou understands their problems well, since she was once a domestic servant herself.

{sidebar id=11 align=right}Slaps and insults a daily routine

"At 5 o'clock, you wake up to make preparations for the day and then your boss gives you money to buy the food that you're going to prepare," Zeinabou told Deutsche Welle. "After you are done with the cooking the boss will start hitting and insulting you because she thinks the soup isn't well prepared," she added.

Zenabou further highlights problems faced by domestic servants, notably not being able to have a share of the meals that they prepare. Many also have to sleep in the kitchen or on the corridor.

Sold by their own parents

{sidebar id=10 align=right}In Burkina Faso and other African countries, hundreds of thousands of girls share the fate of Zenabou Ilboudou: They are usually aged between nine and 14 years when they start looking for work as domestic servants.

Most have to leave their families because there is no money at home, or are even sold by their parents who are to poor to cater for them.

Alima Fogo is now 21 years old. Her story is not different from Zeinabou's. She was only six years old when she started to work as a maid. She lived in constant fear of sexual harassment from her employer.

"Whenever the boss returned home after work and noticed that his wife was not there, he would entice me to sleep with him, promising to increase my pay at the end of the month," Alima told DW.

Assistance programs are not enough

The government of Burkina Faso has recognized the scale of the problem and has tried to address it together with a number of local and international partners. Terre des Hommes is one of them.

"We currently have a program for about 700 girls who we support to attend school in their home villages," Herman Zoungrana, project manager of Terre des Hommes in Burkina Faso told DW.

Unfortunately, such initiatives are a just drop in the ocean. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), more than 500,000 child workers are exploited in Burkina Faso alone. Private households are just one field of employment. A huge number of children also work in the country's gold mines.

In a particular gold mine, half of the 600 workforce are children. One of them is 15-year-old Zenabou Dipama. He has chapped hands from breaking rocks. "The work was very exhausting," she said. "Working hours are not regulated since we start work in the morning, and then take a break in the afternoon thereafter it goes on until midnight."

Little interest in school

With many children in the region working, most schools are empty. Despite efforts to keep them in school, they have the illusion of escaping and heading for the gold mines. They hope to find a few crumbs of gold that will drive them out of poverty.

Author Dirke Köpp/IM Editor Daniel Pelz

Source Deutsche Welle

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NPP To Deliver “Free” And Quality Education – Dr Bawumia

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Category: Youth News

Created on Tuesday, 12 June 2012 00:00

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NPP To Deliver “Free” And Quality Education – Dr Bawumia

The vice presidential candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, wowed members of the Northern Student’s Union and others from various schools inside the Bolgatanga municipality when he rolled out various ideas the NPP would be introducing in the educational sector to improve the standards of education in Ghana.

Speaking on sustainable job creation for the youth, Dr, Bawumia stated that in the current competitive global environment, all states that seek to gain an advantage over the competition from other states need to focus on creating a skilled and educated workforce as the global competition ultimately comes down to skills.

{sidebar id=11 align=right}He stated “the more knowledgeable your people, the more competitive you are globally; it is not about your natural resources. If it was about your natural resources then Africa would have been the most developed continent in the world. We have a lot of natural resources but we get ‘out-competed’ in the area of skills.”

{sidebar id=10 align=right}The former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana indicated that this was the background to the decision of Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP to introduce free education to the senior high school.

“If education becomes a matter of money, then only rich people’s children would go to school; that is the bottom line but we do not want education to be a matter of money, there are too many very bright people who should have access to education and that is why Nana Akufo-Addo has said that the NPP would implement Free Senior High School education in Ghana; it is a major promise, but it is a doable promise,” Dr. Bawumia stated.

Dr. Bawumia indicated that the focus was not only on making the education free but was on delivering free, quality education.

Dr. Bawumia in explaining further stated that to ensure that there was quality education, the NPP administration would ensure that it infuses modern technology in the delivery of teaching and learning across the country.

He said that through technology and the internet specifically, it would for example be possible to put lectures on the internet to ensure that students in the North know what is being taught in schools in the south and vice-versa and that this would also make it possible for teachers in the North to learn various workable teaching methods from their colleagues in the south which would be infused in their lessons and for teachers in the south to also learn from their colleagues in the south.

Source: citifmonline.com

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Photo: Man Defiles Girl At Mosque

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Category: Youth News

Created on Thursday, 14 June 2012 00:00

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Photo: Man Defiles Girl At Mosque

14 June 2012

KUMASI Circuit Court presided over by Emmanuel Amo Yartey has sentenced a 42-year-old ex-convict to 15 years’ imprisonment for defiling a 12-year-old girl in a mosque.

 Awudu Gariba, who pleaded guilty to the charge of defilement, contrary to section 101 of Act 39/60, claimed the little girl rather unzipped him and had sexual intercourse with him.

{sidebar id=10 align=right}Presenting the facts of the case to the court, Police Chief Inspector P.Y Bebli said the convict used to stay with the victim’s mother in the same house at Anloga, a suburb of Kumasi.

The prosecutor said a few years ago, 42-year-old Gariba was ejected from the house and he decided to stay at the Anloga Mosque.

On June 4, 2012, at about 5:30pm, according to the prosecutor, the victim misbehaved, left home and passed the night at the mosque where the convict was occupying, for fear of being punished.

Chief Inspector Bebli said the convict took advantage of the situation in which the minor found herself and sexually abused her twice the same night.

After satisfying his libido, he gave the victim GH¢1.00 and warned her not to disclose the act to anyone.

According to the prosecutor, on June 5, 2012, at about 5:30am, the mother of the victim went for her usual morning prayers at the mosque where she surprisingly found her daughter lying naked beside the convict.

When her mother interrogated her, she confessed her sexual escapade with the convict. The mother then lodged a complaint with the police, leading to the convict’s arrest.

In Awudu’s caution statement, he admitted to the offence and was arraigned after investigations.

Source: James Quansah, Kumasi

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Father Impregnates Daughter...

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Category: Youth News

Created on Wednesday, 06 June 2012 00:00

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Father Impregnates Daughter...

{sidebar id=10 align=right}Residents of Tanoso near Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo region are in a state of shock after it was revealed that, a father in the town had allegedly impregnated his 13-year-old daughter.

According to the girl, she lived with her grandmother while the father also lived in a different house. However she visited the father time to time to fetch water for him and washed his clothes and it was during one of those visits that the incestuous act took place.

The girl whose name is being withheld stated that, one visit, and after doing some chores, the father asked her to pick something for him from his bedroom but he stealthily followed and pounced on her asking her not to shout.

She said her father covered her mouth with his hand and slept with her, adding that the act continued until she noted that she was pregnant. She said her grandmother confronted her demanding who was responsible and she told her it was her father.

The grandmother, it is alleged, thereafter gave the teenager some concoctions which she drank, aborting the pregnancy, an allegation she has denied but admits the girl's father had sexual relationship with her.

But the 13 year old girl has demanded that the police arrest her father for him to face the full rigours of the laws because, she had stopped schooling due to the unbearable ridicule by her schoolmates.

The victim has also been reportedly defiled in a bush near a river in the town as well as “gang-raped” in a kitchen. Her uncle, Paa Kwame who revealed this said that, the family was planning to organize spiritual cleansing for the girl, when they got the shocking revelation that the girl's own father had had sexual relationship with her.

He said the father had absconded after the issue came out, and this is making it difficult for any rituals to be performed immediately.

In a related development, the Omanhene of Tanoso Nana Asare Baffuor II has said that he wants to meet all witnesses in the case before a decision could be taken to deal with the customary aspect of the matter.

According to him, some pacification should be performed to the gods, even though the police will have to deal with the criminal aspect.

Source: GNA

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