Police intercept two buses with 61 children

Most of the children become porters and live in slums The police in Kasana Nankana District in the Upper East Region have arrested two buses carrying a total of 61 children under the age of 15 en route to Kumasi and Accra without their parents. The police stopped the vehicles in a town called Sirigu near Navrongo. This is the second in a week that children have been intercepted travelling without a guardian in the Upper East Region. Last week, an Accra-bound car carrying 27 children was intercepted in the regional capital Bolgatanga. Joy News’ correspondent in the Upper East Region, Joseph Osei, says the situation in the region “has become a normal development” where, during vocations, children under the age of 15 travel down south to look for menial jobs to earn money to enable them pay their school fees back home. Meanwhile parents whose children were involved in the latest interception have denied knowledge of it. Due to financial constraint, most parents who could not meet their parental responsibilities are compelled to allow their wards to engage in this kind of exodus. The regional police commander, ACP Bright Oduro, said the police will intensify their search, and work in collaboration with the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) and the Commission on Children, to ensure that no child travels to the south without being accompanied by a guardian. He said the situation, as pertains in the region, raises security concerns and warned that if care is not taken traffickers would take advantage of it. The migration of these children has largely been blamed on economic hardship caused by the development gab between the south and the north. Story by Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana