Ghana: Amend Foster Care Regulations to Protect Male Children

“The recent rise in the number of abuse cases involving young boys raises the stakes for a review of the foster care rules and regulations, which seems to have loop holes that put boys at risk.

This development makes the need for reform of our foster care regulations more critical. In fact, when I read the story, I immediately realised that it would be useful to make public, the content of a letter I sent only a few weeks ago to the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare urging the Ministry to consider reviewing the foster care regulations.

The issue at stake is that some sections of the foster care regulations in the current form, will unintentionally put boys at risk and therefore should be amended. Please read the letter below.
Petition to the Minister of Employment & Social Welfare to re-examine sections of the Foster Care Regulations (2007)
The Minister
Ministry of Employment & Social Welfare
P.O. Box 1627 State House Accra
24th October 2011
Following a careful reading of the Ghana Foster Care Regulations Document (2007), I observed that sections of it – if implemented without critical assessment by social workers – may not adequately protect Ghanaian children in foster care.

I would like to draw your attention to two sections of the Foster Care Regulations that are of concern to me.

The sections under are:
• Criteria For Holding A Foster Care License/Certification
• Assessment Of The Personal Characteristics Of A Foster Carer (Section F – Personal Characteristics)
Firstly, points 6-8 of the section on Criteria for Holding a Foster Care License/Certification state that:
6. An applicant for a foster license shall be resident in Ghana but need not be a citizen of Ghana
7. If married, the spouse of the license applicant shall consent to the fostering arrangement.
8. No single male shall foster a female.

I find that point 6 and 8 can create loopholes for people of bad character to enter into the foster care system in Ghana, for their own dubious reasons. This is because point 8 only looks at a single male fostering a female child as problematic. However, the foster care research literature shows that male children living with male foster carers are not necessarily safe. This is because paedophilia has become a huge issue in recent times in industrialised countries and even now in Ghana. In many jurisdictions, governments and have tried to tighten the regulations to ensure that foster children are not put at risk.

One may argue that in Ghana this would not be a problem because our history and cultural experiences show no evidence of such danger to male children from single males. However, given the current global phenomenon of rapid social values dynamics, and the influx of people with different sexual lifestyles into Ghana, male children fostered to single males may not necessarily be guaranteed safety and protection. It is possible that boys who are fostered to single men may be subjected to influences and acts that will violate their rights, dignity and may not be in the children’s best interest. In light of this, it is important to amend this section to include the criterion that no single man shall foster a male child.

This amendment will not only strengthen the criteria of the relevant section but also strengthen Section F. point #3 which focuses on assessment of the personal characteristics of foster carers. In point #2 of section F, “Good Character” is considered an important criterion, but this is not covered in point #3 of the section where pragmatic assessment of personal characteristics is outlined. This may be overlooked by social workers who will be using this document as a guide because it is not listed in the review of personal characteristics section.

This petition intends to advocate for the Department of Social Welfare to ensure that people who apply to foster children are not paedophiles or those who are likely to sexually abuse children of similar gender.

Comments:
The abuse of children by paedophiles is well documented in the foster care research literature in developed countries. Ghana’s has begun attracting foreign investment at an unprecedented rate, and at the same time, it is attracting all manner of people with different life-styles and histories. The problem here is that Foster care regulation states under the General Criteria for holding foster care license that “An applicant for a foster license shall be resident in Ghana but need not be a citizen of Ghana”. This opens the door for single male foreigners who are resident here to apply to foster Ghanaian children. And the likelihood of them succeeding in becoming foster parents is great for the reason that they are richer than the average Ghanaian and most likely to be preferred as foster parents to poor Ghanaian children.

The problem that arises therefore is that when people with bad character – who have been forced to disengage from unacceptable behaviours towards children in their home countries – arrive in Ghana, only aspects of their histories will be known. And in this limited knowledge lies the potential risk for Ghanaian children if such foreigners become foster parents. It is important to note that in poor Ghanaian communities, Social Workers may be attracted to these foreign foster carers who have money but may not have other more important qualities – e.g. good character. And sometimes, the economic power of potential foster carers can lure social workers and even relatives into making poor decisions with regard to foster care placements. Therefore changing these sections will ensure that social workers, especially those recently trained and those working in rural areas may not inadvertently deliver children into the hands of potential child abusers, who come dangling their attractive economic baits in poor communities.

Please tighten this section of the regulation and require social workers to scrutinize more carefully any single males and females who have no strong or close kinship relations with children needing alternative placement.
Sincerely
Dr. Ahmed Bawa Kuyini
CEVS-Ghana, Tamale. (www.cvsghana.org )”

Amend Foster Care Regulations to Protect Male Children
[Modern Ghana 12/1/11 by Dr. Ahmed Bawa Kuyini]

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