The Department of Children in Upper East Region on Thursday organized a day's workshop to sensitize stakeholders on violence against children.
It was attended by participants from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), Judicial Service, Ghana Education Service, Department of Social Welfare (DSW), Immigration Service, Ghana Police Service and NGOs to educate them to appreciate issues affecting children especially those that were violent related.
Presenting a paper on the topic: "Violence Against Children," Mr Sylvester Kyei Gyemfi, Head of Information, Research and Advocacy Division of Department of Children of Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, said violence against children was a global phenomenon influenced by the socio-cultural, economic and political needs of a people in a defined geographical area.
He said a survey conducted in the country indicated that the phenomenon was different and offences associated with violent acts against children differed depending on the environment from which the offence was being committed.
Mr Gyemfi said the number of juveniles in adult detention facilities between 2002 and 2003 was 23 while children's maintenance cases recorded by DSW between 2001 and 2007 stood at 50,785.
Mr Gyemfi said sexual offences against children were 6,027 and failure to provide for their upkeep or non maintenance offences was 7,488 during the same period.
He noted that school violence was on the increase and circumstances under which children were punished include, lateness to school, failure to submit homework or submitting it late, fighting and beating of children by fellow children.
Others are, punishing the child for failing to understand a lesson and conflicts of interest among pupils and teachers, cruelty and intolerance and lost of trust in teachers and parents among children.
Mr Gyemfi discouraged the act of spanking in schools as a yardstick for upgrading children and said children remained in constant fear and found it difficult to concentrate on the lesson taught them in view of the negative tendencies associated with spanking, saying that early childhood was a very sensitive and critical period in brain development.
The participants called for a reflection over the various cultures and traditions that invariably affected children negatively in the country.
They suggested that children should be remodeled to ensure they were brought up in a better way and not live under the guise of United Nations laws that allowed children to do what they thought was good for them.
The participants noted that Ghanaian communities nationwide had their models for training children and difficult to give out a uniform model because the training differed from ethnic groups.
They emphasized that the type of training given should build responsible adults.