By Doh James Sonkey
The Prime Minister, Head of Government, Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute has instructed cabinet members of government to activate all current protection instruments to ensure the social protection of children during the third term holidays. The Prime Minister, Head of Government gave the instruction at the Star Building in Yaounde last May 30, 2024 as he chaired the cabinet meeting for the month of May 2024.
Chairing the cabinet meeting dedicated to the evaluation of protection measures in favour of children, PM Dion Ngute and members of government used the occasion to look at protection measures in the country as well as explore other ways children can better be protected during this third term holidays. His instruction follows repeated reports of children, especially those in rural areas, suffering child labour, as they are engaged in different activities by their parents under the pretext of holiday jobs.
This period usually opens avenues for more children to suffer violence and moral danger if protection measures are not put in place. According to a 2007 report published by the National Institute of Statistics, NIS, 27.9% of children especially in rural areas suffer child labour with 4.4% of them engaged in dangerous work in agriculture, construction and hawking.
The Minister of Labour and Social Security, Gregoire Owona made a presentation at the meeting in which he disclosed that “all conventions on the minimum age of work and on the eradication of child labour are well in place and active in the country.”
He was corroborated by the Minister of Social Affairs, Pauline Irene Nguene, who said: “We have first of all, the mechanism towards the community. We had to mobilise the entire community on the protection of the child. We have mechanisms for child care. All these mechanisms are to make sure we have an eye on the children.”
The Social Affairs boss added that “the protection of the rights of children is a duty which concerns all and sundry. We need to have coordination of all different initiatives because we have private initiatives, public initiatives for us to have institutional response, for us to have appropriate response and intervention.”