Decent Work Strategies Needed to Defend Worker’s Rights – Prof Samuel Kwaku Bonsu

Prof Samuel Kwaku Bonsu, Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, has urged researchers and authorities to develop comprehensive decent work strategies to defend workers’ rights. According to him, prioritizing the interests of workers and protecting human rights were crucial to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Rector made this known at a research project conference themed, “Realising the SDGs: The Role of Responsible Business,” in Accra, funded by DANIDA through the Danish Institute for Human Rights. The project centered on four areas of research, including decent work in Ghana’s artisanal mining industry, non-judicial remediation of private sector human rights, child labor in the cocoa industry, and a National Plan of Action on business and human rights in Ghana.

Prof Bonsu, while presenting on “Decent Work and Precarity in Ghana’s Artisanal Mining Sector,” noted that the research revealed a disconnection between the norms and the implementation of their relevant interventions under the agenda of the SDGs. The project, which focused on Tarkwa Nsuaem, Ghana’s largest mining area, aimed to explore how involuntary self-employment in Ghana’s ASM industry exemplifies market-based employment relations that render employees vulnerable to human abuses.

The research revealed that ASM was fraught with risks and abuses, and workers engaged casually without job stability and safety equipment. Prof Bonsu called for a concerted effort to address the pitfalls in the artisanal mining sector and ensure holistic growth in all sectors of the economy.

Mr Victor Brobbey, Head of Law Department, Lancaster University Ghana, discussed the “National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights,” which involved mandatory human rights impact assessments, human rights due diligence, and monitoring the implementation of human rights policies by business actors. The plan would ensure that Ghana was in line with international best practices in business and human rights and adopt programmes that kept with the growing trend towards responsible and sustainable business conduct.

In conclusion, Mr Joseph Whittal, the Commissioner, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, pledged the commission’s commitment to playing its role in promoting and protecting human rights.