The Legal Resources Centre (LRC), a non-governmental organisation, has entreated personnel from the Ghana Police Service to treat children who flout the country’s laws in a friendly manner.
The Project Officer for LRC, Mr Enock Jengre, who made the call, also noted that most police officers intimidate children and use all sorts of abusive words against minors when they are arrested for committing offences or invited to testify in a case.
Such intimidation and abuse, he said, violate children’s rights and prevents them from giving actual and proper accounts of an event.
Mr Jengre said this in a sideline interview with Kumasi FM’s Elisha Adarkwah at a training workshop organised by LRC for personnel of the Ghana Police Service on the role of security agencies in protecting the right of a child.
The beneficiaries of the workshop were drawn from some targeted districts from four regions (Ashanti, Bono, Ahafo and Bono East) where children mostly come into conflict with the law.
The programme was aimed at building the capacity of the police personnel to properly handle children in conflict with the law.
Mr Jengre said LRC has targeted to train 500 security officers in the justice sector, including the police service, prisons officers, immigration officials, judicial service and 150 paralegals in 55 targeted districts across the country.
He said some selected judges and magistrates, prisons officers and social welfare officers had already undergone training.
Mr Jengre entreated police officers to be more friendly to children and assist them to explain themselves interactively when they commit offences or come into contact with the law.
For his part, legal practitioner Samuel Mahmoud Fenbeti, Chief Executive Officer of Clear Ghana, pleaded with the government to ensure that more correctional centres are built to stop the situation where children are mixed with adults offenders in custody.
Source: https://www.classfmonline.com/1.12747011#be-friendly-to-child-suspects–lrc-to-police
