IT’S A ‘DOG EATS DOG’ COUNTRY

JUST the other day, I was pondering about the state of the youth in Eswatini. The number of unemployed young people is overwhelming. Government has been trying to gather data on unemployment rate as well as find out the qualifications and skills of young people. It is such a shame when you follow this activity and realise how skilled most young people are and yet remain unemployed. This explains the mushrooming crimes we are experiencing as a country. Just the past few weeks, about three people were killed in relation to cannabis and theft, and more people injured. We are experiencing, in real time, the survival of the fittest.

Statistics

More than one in four young people in Africa – around 72 million – are not in employment, education or training. Two-thirds of them are young women. These statistics are scary. This is the reason we experience high crime rates, high cases of gender based violence (GBV) and high suicide rates. One of the results of this is how stagnant the country becomes in terms of development. There is no development that can take place in a country where most of its active citizens are lying idle, unemployed, and ultimately unemployable. Young people are supposed to be the engine of development; they are supposed to drive change in every space they are in and one of those spaces is the workplace. Community development cannot happen without the youth. But the youth needs energy, encouragement and incentives to participate in community development because as much as it is for their own good, they still have bills to pay. So one such incentive is employment or an income of their own.

Decision

Decision makers need to listen to the voices of young people and allow opportunities for dialogue. They also need to find ways of improving the ability to measure the mismatch between the skills of the youth and what employers need. It does not make sense for an employer to want 10 years experience from a young person who completed university just five years-ago, or less. It is even worse if that young person obtained his or her degree, and decided to further their studies and get a Master’s Degree right away, that means they will have the education, but not the experience and that renders them unemployable.

If they are employed, they will not be paid according to their qualification, they will be grossly underpaid because they lack experience. It is for this reason that youth interactions and relationships have turned into a spectacle. Week in and week out, we read about young people killing each other over illegal activities. These fights are expected if that is what they use to bring or put food on the table and it is being attacked. Instead of looking at the end result, our government should address the root causes.

Consistent

Additionally, consistent relationships are found between unemployment and minor psychological disorders. If you walk in town, you will most likely meet over 3 mentally disturbed persons within a space of 30 minutes. This is as a consequence of unemployment. young people will turn to excessive use of drugs and alcohol, leading to mental problems that can only get worse when not attended. This is the reason why violence becomes rife in communities, and places like Mvutshini are burdened with ‘Benjamins’ and jails are laced with young people only to come out either as ‘ama 26’ or ‘ama 28’. And still, youth unemployment is not being treated with the urgency it deserves. If things remain the same, we are ever going to be reading about mob killings and bush fights. I am worried it is becoming so easy to kill in the communities, it is literally a dog-eats-dog world and the best way our leaders thought they’d deal with it is to spray cannabis fields? I honestly do not want to believe that.

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