Social welfare looks for parents of missing children

Pg 11 (w'mens pg). Sat. March 08/08

Story & Pix by Rebecca Quaicoe Duho

THE Shelter for Abused Children under the Department of Social Welfare at Osu is confronted with an additional task of catering for 20 missing children who have been found and sent to the institution.
The operators of the facility said this had compounded their problem since they needed additional resources to cater for the children in addition to their mandated role of catering for abused and children awaiting prosecution.
The shelter with its meagre resources is presently saddled with the medical and feeding bills of the children because their parents cannot be found.
Officials of the institution said most of the children were trafficked to the city to serve as domestic helps and that due to unfavourable conditions they run away and found their way to the police station where they were sent to the shelter.
They are Ebo Ibrahim, 7, Stephen Kwame, 8, Fuseina, 8, Kwame Ansah 12, Comfort Atsupi, 9, Rose Adatsu, 10, Ransford Badowu, 12, Bernard Harrison, 11, Elisabeth Mensah, 15 and Kwame Kwakye, 14.
The rest are Junior Adatsi, 9, Latifa Abraman, Obaayaa Ayitey, Precious Amanful, and Alberta Mann, all aged 11, Deborah Akuabua and Bernice Neku, aged 12 years each Faustina Otoo, 9 and Yaw Thomas and Rebecca Kuwornu, aged 13 years each.
Most of the children, according to the managers of the shelter, give false names as they are afraid they would be discovered and sent back to their parents or guardians while others cannot just give their surnames, where they come from or their age. The ages of those children were guessed by the managers based on their physical appearance.
Although the authorities anticipated that they would be able to trace the relatives of the children after a brief period, some have stayed at the place for about a year while others have been there for months.
The institution which is already burdened with water and transportation problems now has to stretch its budget to feed the children three times daily, give them medical care as well as clothing.
Although several policies and protocols adopted by the government are aimed at safeguarding the rights of the child such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Human Trafficking Act, some children in the country still continue to be in servitude with many more living under deplorable conditions.
All the 20 children at the shelter are not in school as required by the government’s Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education Programme.
When the International Desk Officer of the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWAC), Mrs Marilyn Amponsah Annan, was contacted on the plight of the children, she said it was the responsibility of the Department of Social Welfare to cater for such children.
She, however, said that because the department did not have enough centres, the missing children had to be placed in the shelter as a temporary measure.
Mrs Annan said it was however unfortunate that some of the children had been there for as long as a year, a situation which was not anticipated.

• A group picture of the 20 missing children at the Shelter for Abused girls at Osu.