CRI questions parties who register minors
Child Right International (CRI), a civil society organisation (CSO), has questioned the conduct of political parties who engaged in the unlawful practice of registering minors on the electoral roll.
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According to the Executive Director of CRI, Mr Bright Appiah, involving minors in the electoral process meant, “we are teaching them to be unpatriotic and irresponsible towards national affairs.”
As a child rights advocate, Mr Appiah appealed to the Electoral Commission (EC) to remove the names of minors from the voters register, and thereby prevent them from taking part in any national elections.
He made the appeal at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday to share the organisation’s position on the involvement of minors in the electoral process.
In his view, once children were allowed to take part in the electoral process, it made them more vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation.
Such exploitation, he stated, included children being employed under harsh conditions because it is assumed that they are above 18 years.
Some political parties, including the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), had been accused of registering minors in the just-ended limited voter registration exercise.
Moving forward
Mr Appiah proposed that the state must be interested in registering children at birth to curb the incidence of registering children on the electoral roll.
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He also called on parents and guardians who encouraged their children to partake in the registration process to desist from such an act.
To that effect, he implored stakeholders to join in the fight against registration of minors and seek their protection and welfare.