5 - From Marginal to Central: Tracing the Deployment of Children’s Rights Language in Laws and Action in Ghana

Summary

Introduction

While the language of children's rights officially emerged in the Ghanaian legal and policy lexicon in the 1969 Constitution, it is the period following 1979 that has come to be associated with the systematic deployment and expansion of not only the language of rights, but a culture of rights, at least within legal and policy discourses, in the country. Therefore, this chapter explores the systematic emergence of dominant children's rights discourses in not only legal and policy discourses in Ghana, but also in broader public discourses. Given that the initial development of this framework coincided with a military take- over of the country that ushered in essentially 13 years of authoritarianism, with its attendant strategies of brutality and intimidation, this chapter additionally devotes attention to the factors that resulted in the development of a so- called culture of children's rights, at least in relation to the policy and legal frameworks of the country, at a time of political repression and suppression.

The emergence of the systematic use of the language of children's rights in policy and legal discourses in Ghana

Although the wording of children's rights was first used in the 1969 Constitution, the language was more fully developed in the legal and policy lexicon of Ghana from 1979, the same year that the International Year of the Child was marked globally. The first step in this construction of children's rights was the 1979 Constitution, which came into force on 24 September 1979, and attempted to ostensibly change the ideological underpinnings of state laws towards a more child- rights focused approach. As part of this commitment the Constitution made numerous provisions relating to human rights. With regards to children's rights, provisions are made within Article 32(3) instructing parliament to enact such laws as are necessary to ensure and safeguard the rights of children to care, assistance, maintenance and protection (Government of Ghana, 1979).