The resolutions Ghana need: Protect our children

it is that time of the year when people generally attempt to improve upon conduct and performance. They do so through new year resolutions.

One indicator that the resolutions are necessary can be deduced from the reality that not only do individuals resolve to do well, but behavioural experts offer valuable suggestions to help the determined to live up to such promises.

New year resolutions tend to be positive and imply a quest for acceptable behaviour. 

It is a move that dignifies humanity – striving to make good give way to better, then reach for the best in thinking, action, and handling relationships – to name three. Ideally, such become permanent traits. 

Thus, if people lived by their new year resolutions alone, acceptable behaviour would generally soar, and society would thrive from year-to-year. 

Because new year resolutions are a spur to productive behaviour.

However, a nation could also resolve to adopt effective means to overcome grave misconduct which pulls it aback or harms citizens.  

The Constitution paves the way for that. Ghana needs new year resolutions to combat aggressive behaviour which cheapens life for many in the country. 

Indeed, repulsive conduct that plagues our society and create untold suffering for many are numerous; such objectionable conduct should be checked for human benefits. 

Hence, this call for national resolutions. It commences from the most vulnerable in society.

Stop child neglect

Urgently, Ghana must resolve to prioritise children care and protection to enable the latter to enjoy childhood and thrive in innocence.

On Wednesday, January 7, 2026, I had an encounter with two pre-teenagers in Adum, Kumasi, which encounter affected me deeply. I was dragging two large shopping bags when two girls approached me and offered to carry the loads.

The beautiful, dark girl with a beautiful name – Najat – who spoke to me had a gorgeous smile and a pleasant disposition. 

My question about the two carrying loads instead of being in the classroom was greeted with giggles. Her partner, the reserved Asana, just smiled shyly.

My question attracted two men who sounded just as aggrieved about child neglect. One opined that the parents, not the girls, are to be blamed. 

I added that the children did not ask to be born, a point we all agreed on. One raised a sinister issue about exploitation of such girls.

They explained that it was a business; some people bring the girls to the city to carry loads and earn money for the former. The exploiters collect money from the girls at the end of the day and pay the girls a certain amount. 

Instead of allowing girls to stay at home to enjoy parental care and nurturing, despicable adults drag girls to labour in the heat and be easy prey for predators.

Of course, girl exploitation would not thrive if parents lived up to their responsibility and worked hard to cater for their children. 

The exploitation would not occur at all if unplanned births did not occur, or people gave birth to a small number of children that they could effectively provide for. There is absolutely no need to bring children to the world for them to be suffering.

So, my two girls would carry loads under the scorching sun only to hand over the proceeds to an exploiter. 

Repulsive. Yet, the more contemptible are the parents who fail to protect the children they bring forth. Such are disdainful for causing their children to suffer.

Children’s Rights, a National Issue

The two men and I lamented the rampant irresponsible childbearing in the country. The irresponsibility increases the financial burden on the government, which offloads the burden to the taxpayer.

The trend continues because parents get away with irresponsibility while children suffer, and the taxpayer moans in agony. 

It is time that horrendous situation changed. I suggest that all parents who neglect their children should be tracked, arrested and sent to state farms to till the land. 

Proceeds from sale of their produce would go into their children’s upkeep, so the latter could stay home. 

Language barrier stilted my conversation with the girls, so I could get only two items of information from them: The names and indigenous identity. 

They were from Tamale and belong to the Dagomba tribe. They could not grasp my question about age but are about eleven. Still, the scanty information narrows the search.

Exploitation of the girls is an indictment on the entire Northern community – and of course all other communities endorsing the barbarity. 

The parents must bow their heads in shame, and so must the MPs. President Mahama ought to use his presidency to turn the tide for girls in the North.

Our interaction turned poignant when one of the men pointed to Asana and said she could be a future engineer whose future has already been snipped. 

The gorgeous Najat could be a future teacher or pilot. Some unscrupulous adult elements are wickedly burying the future of girls. 

The Affirmation Action Law is meant to ensure equality for all females in domestic as well as public spaces. 

Female rights’ abuses of all forms must be resisted, but clearly, all hands must be on deck. Gender advocates, the executive, lawmakers, child advocacy groups, conscientious relatives must join the fight to protect girls from the clamps of the atrocious. 

Only a multi-sectoral approach could effectively grapple the menace of girl child exploitation. We have no dignity otherwise.

The writer is a Sr. Lecturer, Language and Communication Skills, Takoradi Technical University
Takoradi.