Child Prostitution on the Rise in New Juaben

The New Juaben Municipal Assembly has announced plans to tackle child Prostitution in the Municipality. The Municipality is gradually becoming notorious for child prostitution due to several factors, key among them being poverty.

The Regional Child Protection Committee formed under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has over the years chalked some successes in reducing the menace which was becoming alarming.

In 2016, the Committee closed down two brothels where Commercial sex workers including children operated.

The menace, however, exists in some parts of the municipality prompting the Queen mother of New Juaben Traditional area, Nana Yaa Dani to wage war against it through advocacy.

In the heat up to the 2016 election, some minor commercial sex workers who were operating in the Municipality in an interview with Starr News’ Eastern Regional Correspondent, Kojo Ansah, said they were willing to stop trading sex for money if provided jobs that could give them income to take care of themselves and family.

The Municipal Chief Executive for New Juabeng Comfort Asante, during a town hall meeting organized by the Assembly in Collaboration with the Ministry of Information, stated that, Child Prostitution is one of the antisocial vices the Assembly is committed to eradicate.

In an interview with Starr News, the MCE explained that, the Assembly will liaise with the appropriate authorities to identify areas famed for the menace to enable the Assembly address it through some social interventions.

“I was looking at Social vices, you can’t rule out some of these things, they may not be so conspicuous but the way things are, you can’t rule some of these things out. There may be some of these things going on and as an assembly, looking at the social wellbeing of your municipality you need to be looking at all these. From now on we are going to put our ears on the ground and send people to find out whether really some of these things are happening”.