Activities Engaged in by Children Involved in Fishing Practices

15 however, most of them indicated that their income dropped as low as GHS0.00 when the season is over.

3.2 Activities Engaged in by Children Involved in Fishing Practices

The survey revealed that most children, especially from the age of 5 in the coastal fishing communities, were involved in fishing-related activities because it is a cultural practice for children to support the family livelihood. However, respondents revealed that more children are being forced into severe and full-time fisheries work due to increasing poverty levels. The practice of children involvement in all kinds of fishing-related activities is seen as a way of life; and with no law enforcement activities, or incentives to keep children in school, life at the beach eking livelihoods for themselves in support of families have become a matter of course. It is at the beach that the children start their ‘training’. All 100 of the children especially from the age of 5 years in the households interviewed engaged in fishing or fishing related activities. About 30 of these children attended school regularly, however, these children engage in fish-related activities after school, during holidays, school vacation, andor weekends. Seventy percent of the children were out of school, and these children are engaged in full-time fisheries work. Of the 762 households interviewed, 43 responded that they engage their children in fish mongering and marketing, with a further 31 responding that they engaged them in fish smoking. Fifteen percent said their children were engaged in hauling fish from the canoes; 7 said they work on fishing vessels that go to sea. Hauling fish or working on fishing vessels canoes is usually not for immediate family members e.g. household head. Four percent responded that, in times of need, they sent their children to work with relatives of other persons in other communities, areas, or countries. Three women household heads responded that they sent their sons to go and work for others males so that those boys could have father figures and disciplinarians around them since they were going wayward. See fig. 3.2 below 16 Fig 3.2. Activities engaged in by children involved in fishing practices About 22 of respondents indicated that all their children work for them, and about 78 indicated that they allow some of their children to work for others at certain periods but not on regular basis.

3.3 Child Education