Police to study child rights
The Ghana Police Service is to introduce the study of child rights and protection in its training curricula. The initiative, known as “Integrating child-friendly policing into the Ghana Police Service”, is a collaboration between the Police Service, the International Bureau of Children (IBCR) and UNICEF Ghana.
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It is to equip all police personnel with the needed skills to deal with children and juvenile issues when they come into contact with those issues.
Launching the initiative in Accra yesterday, the Minister of the Interior, Mr Mark Woyongo, said such a course ensured an enduring and sustainable application of child protection principles in the work of the law enforcement agents.
He said the primary objective of the initiative was to, among other actions, increase children’s access to justice.
He said a steering committee had been set up to provide the policy direction and secure the needed political support for the introduction of the initiative into the Ghana Police Service.
Collective responsibility
The Country Representative of UNICEF, Ms Susan Ngongi, said the police were the first point of contact in the justice system and that the initiative would train and give police personnel the tools to appropriately intervene and refer children to the relevant stakeholders.
She said it was the responsibility of all to ensure that children worked towards a great future, adding that a child should always look to the system as a friend, ally, defender and protector.
The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Mohammed Alhassan, for his part, said child-friendly policing in Ghana dated back to the period when the first 12 policewomen were enlisted into the Ghana Police Service.
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Friendly policing
Mr Alhasan said the introduction of the Women and Juvenile Unit of the service was, among other things, a move to ensure child-friendly policing in the service, saying now the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) had taken over with additional duties to ensure that children were given the needed attention when they came into contact with the law.
He said the community policing concept and the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit were all part of initiatives to ensure child- friendly policing, adding that even though those activities had been going on in the service, they had been performed by specialised units within the service.
He said the specialised units were, however, not found in all police districts and stations throughout the country and there was, therefore, the need to give all police personnel the skills to deal with children and juvenile issues when confronted with those issues.
A Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mr John Alexander Ackon, said children were the assets of every nation, a situation which made it imperative to protect and preserve them by designing pragmatic policies, directives and legislation in their interest.
Accordingly, he said, the ministry was very proud of child-friendly policing because it would ensure maximum protection for children.