Bright Appiah
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of Child Rights International (CRI), Bright Appiah, has appealed to politicians in this year’s elections to avoid using children or minors as campaign tools to secure votes.
Mr. Appiah, who disclosed this in a statement issued by CRI, said although some people may argue that lots of policies were designed for children, using them for campaigns amounted to abusing them.
“The fact that policies are made for children does not mean they should be used as vehicles to win votes,” he noted.
Explaining further, Mr Appiah said the essence of child participation was for them to have a full understanding of the course and act with better appreciation of the content.
In most cases, Mr. Appiah said, children were coerced or used for adverts for political purposes even though politicians “are fully aware that in our electoral design, children do not have the right to vote and therefore should not be part of the process.”
“Political parties must always act in the best interest of children and act more responsibly in order to lay a better foundation for children to appreciate the electoral processes of Ghana and uphold the tenets,” he added.
Mr. Appiah further said it was an obligation for every government or political party to include in their manifestoes policies for children.
“That does not mean political parties can use children as their campaign tool to attract votes from the electorate,” he said.
Abuses
Mr. Appiah said there had been times in the past where politicians abused the rights of children by using them to campaign.
“We have seen on television and campaign platforms where children are made to come and attest to how good or bad a certain policy from a rival political party is. This is not right at all,” he said.
Mr. Appiah said most of such campaigns were done without the consent of some parents, insisting that “most parents, especially the deprived ones, do not know and understand the implications of allowing their children to be used by political parties in campaign periods so they overlook these.”
Apart from the stigma attached, Mr. Appiah said children might get exposed to needless danger from opposing politicians.
“In some cases, the parents of these children also face attacks from whoever their children are campaigning against,” he added.
The CRI Executive Director therefore urged parents to refrain from allowing their children to be used by politicians in their campaigns.
Responsible Campaigning
He said CRI believed that campaigns for votes must be done in a civil manner devoid of any tactics that could worsen the plight of the vulnerable in society.
By Samuel Boadi