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Human Rights advocate Joyce Steiner. © Peter Williams

Human Rights advocate Joyce Steiner. © Peter Williams

Ghanaian Joyce Larko Steiner spends her life fighting child trafficking and child labour in her country.

“It is my wish that we should have zero tolerance for child labour in Ghana because it is a problem here in the mining and fishing industries,” she says, noting that work in both sectors is highly hazardous.

The Ghana Statistical Service in its latest figures from 2012 shows that 21.8 percent of children ages 5-17 years engaged in child labour.

Steiner is optimistic that following the signing of an historical agreement between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in September, there will be a difference for children in Ghana.

She is the programme manager of the Human Rights and Gender Unit of the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG), based in the capital, Accra. Her current top priority is fighting child labour.

The CCG comprises 26 member churches and three Christian organizations.

Steiner attended the first meeting after the WCC and UNICEF signed their agreement to work together. The meeting was held on 19 November — a day before the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. One hundred ninety six countries are signatories to the convention.

“Everyone knows the Convention on the Rights of the Child is there. But do churches pay attention to it and how that relates to their work? I don’t think so,” laments Steiner.

“So this effort is good.”

The convention defines every human being under the age of 18 as a child and it is a framework of world law to protect the basic dignity and rights of children in all parts of the world.

“If the WCC agrees to it and get its constituents, that is, its member churches, to also sign up to it and make a commitment of making it work, then we will get it in at the ground level and the people who will benefit, will be the children, they will gain.

“I am happy that the church has taken this decision at the world level. It will enhance our work on the ground.”

WCC and UNICEF start implementing agreement giving a “Voice For Children’s Rights”