Gender Ministry inaugurates committee
A 17-member committee has been inagurated to facilitate effective and efficient coordination of the development and implementation of the Social Protection Interventions (SPIs).
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The committee’s prime function is to ensure that the needs of the extreme poor, vulnerable and the excluded in the society are addressed.
At the inaugural ceremony in Accra, the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, said over the years, social protection had become one of the effective ways to curbing poverty.
Social protection and poverty
“Social protection over the years has become a major tool for addressing poverty, vulnerability and exclusion. It has become an effective poverty reduction tool across the developing world in recent decades,” she said.
She indicated that poor coordination had been the major difficulty encountered in implementing the SPIs, adding that members of the committee had been carefully selected from different sectors of the economy, including health, education and local government.
According to her, even though the rate of poverty in the country had reduced from 16.5 per cent in 2005/2006 to 8.4 per cent in 2013/2104, there was still disparities and inequalities in the regions, which should be addressed.
“The benefits of the SPIs have to be enjoyed by all and equally distributed among the various regions,” Nana Lithur stated.
The minister attributed reasons for the disparity to lack of clear policy direction, poor targeting of potential beneficiaries and limited monitoring and evaluation of the interventions.
In another development, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the International Justice Mission (IJM) to work together to reduce the menace of human trafficking and the worst forms of child labour through collaborative partnership.
Engaging stakeholders
A Deputy Minister of the ministry, Mr John Alexander Ackon, said the MOU would bring about a significant milestone in the engagement of stakeholders and building the capacities of law enforcement agencies to solidly fight the menace.
He said according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 12.3 million people became victims of forced labour and sexual servitude each year while profits derived from human trafficking were as high as $32 billion.
Also, the State Department of the United States estimated the occurrence of international trafficking persons to be between 600,000 and 800,000 persons per year, with 80 per cent of them being women and children.
He cautioned Ghanaians to accept that trafficking of persons was a crime against humanity and urged everyone to join in the fight against it.