Abstract
This book is an extremely useful tool for those interested in developing country conditions in Africa and other developing continents. It presents a detailed evaluation by mostly Ghanaian social work researchers of Ghana’s attempts to fulfill the ideals of The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) ratified by Ghana in 1989. The CRC has become the benchmark against which children’s rights are measured worldwide. According to the authors, Ghana has much to be proud of in being the first to ratify the CRC and making changes to its constitution which resulted in numerous laws, in particular the Children’s Act of 1998 which drew extensively on the CRC. Since amending its constitution, many efforts by the government and NGOs have been made throughout the country to implement these changes and increase the impact of previously existing policies that protected the rights of children. In addition to celebrating Ghana’s progress, the authors raise a cry of action to the government of Ghana, international actors and social work researchers to continue filling the large gaps identified between the spirit of the CRC and Ghana’s new laws and the reality of children’s rights, safety and well-being in Ghana.
The book is divided into three sections each comprising various chapters. The first section focuses on ‘Childhood and Identity’, the second on ‘Exploitation and Abuse’ and the third on ‘Policies, Laws and Programs’. The early chapters discuss Ghana’s continued transition from colonization to independence and industrialization and the myriad dynamics of cultural transition that continue to impact the conditions of children. Key to this discussion is the gradual shift in recent decades to a greater importance of the nuclear family and the waning influence of the extended family and the tensions this creates. Chapter 2, on defining childhood, explores the challenges of conflicting definitions of childhood in a country where traditional values of collective cultures come into conflict with the individual Western values of rights generally expressed in the CRC and taking form in recent laws. The challenges are most pronounced at the practical level of defining problems and appropriate interventions to child poverty, child labor, and other issues of childhood that are socially interpreted. Chapter 3 explores controversies in defining paternity under Ghana’s plural legal system which offers protection for certain traditional practices and customs that impact the implementation of international standards of treatment of children. Chapter 4 looks at the conditions of refugee children living in Buduburam that are not uniformly covered in Ghana’s legislative framework of children’s rights.
Section two of the book contains Chapters 5 through 7 and offers in-depth analysis of abuses and deprivations of Ghana’s children due to issues of widespread poverty, as well as the difficulties of defining the concept ‘children’s rights’ in traditional languages. The authors explore gaps in children’s rights in many aspects of Ghanaian society such as education, corporal punishment, transportation, health care access, labor laws and poverty. Mention of the LEAP program, which is a cash transfer program to assist poor families in keeping their children in school introduced by the Department of Social Welfare, is interesting as cash transfer programs are increasingly being used in developing countries to combat poverty and improve the conditions of children.
Section three and the remaining chapters continue to explore the challenges Ghana has faced in implementing the spirit of the CRC despite many positive changes to Ghana’s laws. Authors pinpoint reasons for limited implementation of Ghana’s new laws as limited human and financial resources, a lack of uniform definition and understanding of human and children’s rights, cross-agency coordination challenges and lack of awareness and political will. Efforts made to improve conditions for children by government, NGOs and other actors are explored in these chapters. The book concludes with some suggestions of how international actors and researchers can further implement and evaluate laws enacted during the past two decades aimed at improving the lives of children in Ghana.
This book has tremendous insights to offer a broad range of social workers from students to academics and practitioners as well as policy-makers. Universal themes explored regarding challenges to improve human and children’s rights from a Western values perspective within cultures dominated by traditional values where different pressures are exerted on children due to poverty, lack of infrastructure and rural lifestyles are of utmost importance to recognize and address if progress is to be made in the area of children’s rights and poverty eradication. Additionally, this work has great value to offer the international community interested in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. One limitation is the limited focus on what is working well in Ghana programmatically as well as politically. The thorough analysis of what is not working is helpful in understanding the challenges of improving conditions of children. Further understanding of what will reverse negative conditions is sorely needed.