The rationale for carrying out this study on children in abject poverty in Ghana is based on the problems resulting from the fact that children in poverty are invisible, yet they constitute a disproportionately large section of the (poor) population. Children are subsumed within the most referred to poverty categories: households, communities and people; yet among these they always occupy a position of least power and influence (Save the Children Fund UK, 2003), and focus tends to concentrate on adult-related poverty. Children are vulnerable to shocks and adversities and, consequently, are hardest hit by poverty. Given that childhood is the most crucial developmental period in an individual’s lifetime, any damage at this stage can lead to a perpetuation of the cycles of poverty, resulting in intergenerational and/or chronic poverty. Interventions such as universal primary education, and maternal and childcare militate against the monumental odds.
