Gender Ministry to launch three policies
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection is working assiduously towards the launching of three policies for the protection of the rights of children and the improvement of social protection.
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These are the National Social Protection Policy, the School Feeding Policy and the Justice for Children Policy.
This will bring to five the number of policies that were approved by Cabinet for the ministry in 2015.
The other two policies are the Child and Family Welfare Policy and the National Gender Policy, which were launched last year.
A statement from the ministry said the move formed part of the government’s plans to improve the policy framework in respect of protecting the rights of children and improving social protection in the country.
The policies
The National Social Protection Policy provides a framework for a coherent social protection system in the country. It will also provide mechanisms to protect persons living in situations of extreme poverty and related vulnerability and exclusion, and will create an all-inclusive and socially empowered society.
It also reflects the government’s commitment to reduce by more than half the proportion of men, women and children living in all forms of poverty; achieve full and productive employment for all, including young people and people with disabilities, and substantially increase access to formal social security for Ghanaians in working age and older persons.
It focuses on facilitating the implementation of five flagship programmes, namely the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW), the School Feeding
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Programme (SFP), the National Health Insurance Sheme (NHIS) Exemptions and the Basic Education Capitation Grant.
The School Feeding Policy will have a well-organised, decentralised intervention system to provide disadvantaged school children with nutritionally adequate, locally produced food and thereby reduce poverty through improved household incomes and effective local economic development.
It also aims at fostering local economic development in food production, marketing and processing and also promoting local collaboration and joint ownership of child nutrition, health promotion and education by local authorities, communities and stakeholders.
Juvenile justice
The third policy, the Justice for Children Policy, addresses both criminal and civil cases involving children and seeks to establish a well-structured and coordinated Justice for Children system that promotes the well-being of children, prevents violence, exploitation and abuse.
The policy will protect children from harm and promote justice for them.
It is concerned with all children who would come into contact with the justice system – as victims of crime, witnesses, alleged offenders and offenders, and other cases involving children.
It is also to provide for an improvement in the handling of justice for children’s cases, by the formal justice system and community justice system, with the overall goal of improving access to justice for children in line with acceptable standards, values and beliefs of the formal and community justice system.
As part of implementing the policy, a child support unit would be established to, among other functions, file cases in court on behalf of applicants against parents who do not contribute to the welfare of their children.
The statement from the ministry said the three policies would be launched this year, and a plan for their implementation would subsequently be rolled out.