Dr Ephraim Avea Nsoh, Upper East Regional Minister, has advocated the withdrawal of customs and traditions that are inimical to the proper development of children and the family system.

Dr Nsoh made the call on the premise that those customary practices that were obsolete should be discarded, while the good aspects of the family system which have worked over the years, especially about the development of the child,should be maintained or modified.

He was addressing participants attending a sub national consultation forum on child and family welfare policy to work towards good customary practices that suit communities and regions that would lead to the development of children and the family.

The Minister condemned bad customary practices that affect the development of children, and called on the participants to work out modalities to fine-tune and maintain the good ones to foster the welfare of children and the family system.

The participants included queen-mothers, head of departments, assembly members and the media.

The forum was organized by the Department of Gender and Children in Bolgatanga, to validate the new National Policy Framework on Child and Family Welfare Policy.

It was also to create awareness and galvanize support for the policy development process, disseminate content of the policy and solicit contributions from participants into the policy.

Dr Nsoh cited poor sanitary practices as having key effects on children and their welfare, and said the impact of this on children and individual families raise numerous health concerns, and impact on the national and family purse.

He,therefore, called for activities and programmes that would reflect What west and for and being practical about what we stand for, to ensure comprehensive child protection system that reflect the needs and aspirations of the country.

Dr Nsoh expressed appreciation to government for developing a child and family welfare policy for the country, and noted that human security was important as it touched on people’s survival, livelihoods and dignity that ranged from health pandemics, conflicts and climate change which could not be solved in isolation without promulgating comprehensive, integrated and people-centered laws.

Mr Clarke Noyoru, Programme Officer in charge of Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PPED), at the Ministry of Women, Gender, and Social Protection,said a key component of the document was to ensure behavioral change through strategies that would be used to communicate to the people.

He indicated that the family system was essential because it was the basis on which child grew, and therefore there was the need for holistic interventions to protect children.

Mr Noyoru gave overview of some social protection interventions practised in the country, and said recent mapping conducted on the interventions, identified some disconnection between practice and the legal framework, in spite of the advantages.

He identified juvenile justice as not being integrated into the broader justice system among others, as well as multiplicity of interventions and duplication of programmes by organizations.

He said to address these, government commenced the process of strengthening child protection systems to make them fit into the framework, indicating that the aspirations were to ensure that the system became more effective, sustainable,and socio-culturally appropriate for Ghana.

According to Mr Noyoru the system is expected to better protect children from all forms of violence, abuse and exploitation.

GNA