Lexington Books
Pages: 310
•
Trim: 6½ x 9½
978-0-7391-4800-6 • Hardback • February 2011 • $142.00 • (£109.00)
978-0-7391-8457-8 • Paperback • May 2013 • $59.99 • (£46.00)
978-0-7391-6910-0 • eBook • February 2011 • $57.00 • (£44.00)
Robert Kwame Ame is assistant professor of human rights and criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University.
DeBrenna LaFa Agbényiga is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work and assistant dean for equity, diverity, and inclusive academic affairs in the College of Social Science at Michigan State University.
Nana Araba Apt is professor of sociology and dean of academic affairs at Ashesi University College in Accra, Ghana.
Foreword
Part I. Childhood and Identity
Chapter 1. Introduction: Confronting the Challenges: Optimizing Child Rights in Ghana
Chapter 2. Defining Childhood: A Historical Development Perspective
Chapter 3. Controversies in Paternity: Who Is a Child's Father under Ghanaian Law?
Chapter 4. Bridging the Child Rights Gap in a Refugee Context: Survival Strategies and Impact on Inter-generational Relations
Part II. Chidren in Dangerous Circumstances: Exploitation and Abuse
Chapter 5. Corporal Punishment in Ghana
Chapter 6. Child Labor in Ghana: Global Concern and Local Reality
Chapter 7. Children's Rights, Mobility, and Transport in Ghana: Access to Education and Health Services
Part III. Policies, Laws, and Programs
Chapter 8. Children's Rights, Controversial Traditional Practices, and the Trokosi System: A Critical Socio-legal Perspective
Chapter 9. Assessing the Progress of the 1998 Children's Act of Ghana:Achievements, Opportunities, and Challenges of the FirstTen Years
Chapter 10. Situating CRC Implementation Processes in the Local Contextsof Correctional Institutions for Children in Conflict with the Law in Ghana
Chapter 11. Ghana's Education System: Where Rhetoric Meets Reform
Chapter 12. Conclusion: The Future of Children's Rights in Ghana
This is a key text and probably the first of its kind that focuses on Africa. While Ghana was one of the first signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, relatively little work in and on Ghana has looked at children's issues over the past 20 years. This book completely remedies this lack and its contents—from an excellent mix of longer-standing experts in the field and younger scholars bringing new perspectives and energy-analyse both the theoretical problems of childhood (definitions, identities and accepted local practices) and the contemporary policy/implementation issues, as well as the thorny universalization of human rights questions. All are covered with a clarity and comprehensiveness rare in such collections. The editors and contributors are to be congratulated.
— Lynne Brydon, Director of the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham
Children's Rights in Ghana is a very valuable and compelling addition to the growing evidence of gaps between the promise of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its reality in practice. With its cogent organization, clear writing, and comprehensive coverage, the chapters provide a useful yardstick against which progress readily can be assessed.
— Katherine Covell, Executive Director of Cape Breton University Children's Rights Centre
Children's Rights in Ghana leads the reader into a new world of understanding of the condition of children in Ghana and especially, the evolution of their identity and rights since colonial times. The various contributors bring together historical, socio-cultural and legal and economic explanations and reflections on the position of children in Ghanaian society.
— Ellen Aryeetey, Director of the Centre for Social Policy Studies, University of Ghana