The Role of State Actors in Pursuing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Ghana

Abstract

Ghana was the first country to ratify the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It is mandated on countries to establish effective institutions to pursue the objectives within the UNCRC. This dissertation explores the pursuance of the substantive rights by the Department of Social Welfare and Community in the Cape Coast Metropolis. It examines cases, programmes and challenges relating to children’s rights in the Cape Coast Metropolis. Studies conducted on children’s rights in Cape Coast were not contextualised within the UNCRC. Therefore, there is dearth of literature on the relationship between an institution and international convention in the Cape Coast Metropolis. I employed the qualitative research approach, sampled documents and adopted purposive sampling for the interviews conducted. The study finds that, the DSWCD deals with cases in the area of child maintenance, child custody, probation service, family reconciliation, paternity and supervision of Day Care Centre. In addition, the DSWCD has a number of programmes such as the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the Child Protection programmes, the Case and Court work and the Foster Care Programmes. The DSWCD also has challenges such as; inadequate financial and logistical support, inadequate capacity development and lack of collaboration among state institutions. The study proposes that the DSWCD should be resourced, and there should be greater provision of human rights training and collaboration among child welfare institutions. The study, therefore, recommends that more research to be conducted in the future which focus on other articles within the UNCRC since this current study only focused on the substantive rights. Lastly, further studies need to be conducted on Ghana’s implementation of the UNCRC across regions.