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National law and policies on minimum ages – Ghana

 

According to the CRC, laws and policies must be directed to the best interest of the child. This is especially so in provisions that aim to safeguard the child against exploitation or an early end to childhood, i.e. in the instances where children are most vulnerable and at risk. Yet such safeguards are often ignored and different areas of legislation found to clash with each other. What happens if the age for the end of compulsory education is 14 but the minimum age of employment is 12? Or vice versa? What if a girl can be married before school leaving age - will she then return to school? And who ensures schooling in prisons, when in reality education should protect children from incarceration?

 

 

 

 

With 192 parties to it, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most widely ratified UN treaty. Each State Party must submit periodic reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which uses this process to monitor State compliance with the treaty. The vast majority of the information on minimum ages presented on these pages is taken directly from such reports (occasionally, if these failed to include relevant information concerning minimum ages, other components of the reporting process - such as the Committee’s Concluding Observations - were consulted). States Parties’ reports constitute self-assessment by governments and are therefore authoritative sources, emanating directly from those empowered to make decisions. Using this type of sources also permits a range of actors to hold governments accountable for the standards which they report under the CRC. The sections of these reports have been reproduced faithfully, and readers are encouraged to make use of the full original text, available here.

 

Individual country reports are often written by diverse parts of the government, and frequently run to more than 100 pages. Moreover, within some states’ legal systems there are various recognised sources of law, which frequently generate conflicting minimum ages. Distilling precise numbers out of such documents is therefore a precarious task. While we would encourage cross-country comparison, we would also stress the danger that those countries with a more honest engagement with the reporting process might come off worse when compared with those which would mis-represent the degree of compliance, whether wilfully or not. For a full explanation of the principles that guided us in our analysis, please visit the introductory pages here.

Sources:

2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.34, 14 July 2005
Initial report: CRC/C/3 Add. 39, 19 December 1995
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 2nd report
43. The Constitution grants every Ghanaian child the right to education. Under
the 1987 Education Reform Programme, the first nine years of school (ages 6-15, i.e. basic education) is free and compulsory however, children above the stipulated age who have not completed basic school can still enjoy the right.
28. The Education Act of 1961 (Act 87) made basic education free and compulsory for all children of school age. In the context of the 1987 Education Reform Programme, basic education is defined as the first 9 years of school, which is free and compulsory for all children aged between 6 and 15 years and which consist of 6 years primary and 3 years of junior secondary school. The 1992 Constitution gives all persons the right to equal educational opportunities (art. 25).
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From 2nd report
44. Under Section 87 of The Children’s Act, no child may be engaged in ‘exploitative labour,’ defined as any labour that deprives a child of its health, education or development. Further, under Section 88, no child may be engaged in work between the hours of eight in the evening and six in the morning. Similarly, under Section 91 no one under the age of eighteen may be engaged in ‘hazardous work’, defined as work that poses a danger to a child’s health, safety or morals. The Act provides specific examples of forms of employment which fall under this category, including going to sea, mining and quarrying, porterage of heavy loads and working in places such as bars, hotels and places of entertainment where a person may be exposed to immoral behaviour. Under Sections 89 and 90 of the same Act, the minimum age of employment is fifteen years and the minimum age for the engagement of a child in light work is thirteen years. Light work is defined as work that is not likely to be harmful to the health or development of the child and does not affect the child’s attendance at school or the capacity of the child to benefit from schoolwork.
From initial report
29. Under the Labour Decree 1967 (NLCD 157), until the apparent age of 15 years when basic education is deemed to have ended, a child may only be employed within his own family, in light work strictly of an agricultural or domestic nature. Working for pay is permitted, within limits, for persons between 15 and 18 years, otherwise described as "young persons".
30. Child labour does, however, exist in Ghana in the informal sector and generally takes the form of self-employment as portering, shoe-shining, petty trading, newspaper selling, domestic labouring and others.
 
Minimum age for marriage
From 2nd report
45. The legal minimum age for marriage of whatever kind is 18 years under The Children’s Act. A child has the right to refuse betrothal; to be a subject of a dowry or transaction and to be married under 18 years. The DSW, CHRAJ and WAJU protect children under eighteen (18) years from forced marriage. In cases where juveniles are forced to marry, action is instituted at the Court and the parents of the juvenile together with the would-be-husband are restrained from executing the marriage.
From initial report
35. The Marriage Ordinance, cap. 127, makes the legal age for marriage as 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys, respectively. Customary practices in certain parts of the country lead to both early betrothal and marriage of girls. Where it can be proved that the girl's consent to an early customary marriage was absent, a prosecution for forcible marriage can be carried out. But, of course, many females do not know that they have the right to refuse early marriages. Many feel compelled to cohabit with a man by circumstances such as poverty. Public education is geared towards educating families about the health hazards of early marriage to the girls and encouraging parents/guardians to allow girls to go to school and spend more years in school before marrying and starting families.
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 2nd report
49. Section 4 of the Criminal Code (Amendment) Act 1998 (554) increases the age of criminal responsibility from 7 to 12 years.
From initial report
37. The minimum age of criminal responsibility is 7 years. However between 7 and 12 a child cannot be prosecuted if he has not attained sufficient maturity to judge the nature and consequences of his conduct.
 
Sources:
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.34, 14 July 2005

Initial report: CRC/C/3 Add. 39, 19 December 1995