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Fighting streetism in Ghana: Social Welfare officers dodge probing questions

• By EDMOND GYEBI
• April 16, 2019
• 28

Officials of the Department of Social Welfare under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection were very illusive in providing reasonable answers to probing questions on why thousands of children and adults are still flooding the streets of Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi.
      
The Deputy Director in charge of Programmes at the Department of Social Welfare, Dela Ashiagbor substantially failed to deal with the issues to provide answers or speak to the issues during his interview with Omanhene Kwabena Asante and Nana Yaa Brefo of Adom TV on Tuesday, 16th April, 2019. 

From their fore comments, WatchGhana.Com could deduce that the presenters were filled with passion and were seeking to trigger a deeper national discussion on the issue of streetism in Ghana, but the social welfare official wouldn’t have any of that.   

Even though it is an open secret, that, all Regional and District offices of the Department of Social Welfare are under resourced in terms of logistics and staff, Mr. Ashiagbor as usual of public service officials, decided to defend the system (government) rather than addressing the numerous challenges confronting the department and the children on the streets.

Adom TV’s video documentary on streetism in Ghana exposed the inefficiencies of successive Governments in dealing with the menace of the growing number of street children. 

In somewhere 2017, the former Gender Minister, Otiko Afisah Djaba launched the ‘Operation Get Off the Streets Now-for a better life’ campaign, but this laudable vision seems to have been put under the carpet after she (Otiko) was removed from office by President Nana Akufo-Addo.

Mr. Dela Ashiagbor would not readily admit that the Social Welfare department is faced with many challenges and that the nation has failed to provide the needed logistics and support for its operations. 

When asked whether the department has vehicles to run the affairs of the department and its other offices, he dodged, and rather decided to talk about how expensive it is for government to deal with social protection issues.

He said, the department could not put pressure on government to provide the needed resources, so therefore they make do with the little resources available. 

“Of course the issue of under resource has been there for years, but the issue is that the district offices are all under the local government acts and are no more under the national secretariat of the social welfare. So their funding and everything goes to the assemblies”.

He said the department had for the past two years taken upon itself to clear those on the streets. Mr. Ashiagbor however described it as complex for the department to carry out that exercise in a holistic manner. 

The Deputy Director at the Department of Social Welfare said there was no empirical data to determine the number of children on the streets, which he said makes it difficult for any action to be taken. 

Mr. Ashiagbor also explained how difficult it is for the department to integrate the children into their original families after they removed, since most of them could not trace their parents or are not ready to go back to their families.

He therefore disclosed that the focus of the department was to first and foremost do a headcount in order to have a database on the children, identify their peculiar problems and offer interventions for each of them before they are cleared from the streets.

The presenters described his explanation as unimpressive to help matters. Currently, the streets of Accra and Kumasi in particular are choked with many vulnerable children and adults begging for alms. They have no shelter and thus sleep, eat and bath on the streets. 
Majority of these children are exposed to many dangers especially the females some of whom are sexually abused and impregnated by unidentified men who take advantage of their presence on the streets.

It is widely believed that most of these kids who grow up on the street do not get educated and rather become armed robbers and prostitutes. 
The big question now is: Is the social welfare department capable of dealing with streetism in Ghana?

Source: WatchGhana.Com