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Youth Service report opens can of worms
Clemence Manyukwe, The Financial Gazette
May 24, 2007

http://allafrica.com/stories/200705240672.html

A PARLIAMENTARY report has opened the lid on the rot in government's much-touted National Youth Service programme, revealing how youths and soldiers are fighting over food, and how female recruits live in constant fear of sexual abuse by their instructors.

The report, tabled in Parliament last week, recommends the temporary closure of the camps, underscoring the legislators' "horror" at the living conditions at the centres. The report was compiled after tours of the national youth service centres and vocational training centres by Members of Parliament (MPs).

Youths frequently go to bed hungry, the MPs established, and at one youth camp, there had been "an upheaval" over food. "The committee was disturbed by the diet offered at the National Youth Service Centres.

At Guyu National Youth Service Centre in Matabeleland South, the committee was horrified by the state of the barracks. They had no doors or windows and the students complained about finding cats and snakes in the barracks."

Trainees get a cup of porridge with no sugar each morning, and lunch is always sadza with either beans or boiled cabbage. At Magamba Vocational Training Centre (VTC), which the MPs visited in March, students said they had been on a monotonous diet of sadza and cabbage every day since the centre opened in January.

"The committee was dismayed by the state of hostels at Magamba VTC. The hostels were old and falling in and doors had no handles. The ceilings were badly affected by termites and the students were crowded in small rooms, as some hostels had become inhabitable," the report said.

"The condition of the ablution facilities at Magamba was quite appalling as well. In some hostels only one out of six toilets was in working order and showers were rusted and leaking." At Kaguvi VTC, the report reveals how a fight erupted between soldiers and the youths.

"The committee was informed of an incident of violence involving army personnel, a unit of the operation Maguta programme based at the centre, and National Youth Service students. An upheaval arose over the issue of delays in the serving of food and one student had his arms broken."

The report says the administrators of the youth service centres have not been forthcoming with information regarding life at the camps. The MPs have recommended that cases of violence and abuse be reported to the police and be fully investigated. "Since the inception of National Youth service, there have been some worrying reports that female trainees were sexually abused by male instructors or by fellow male trainees," the report says.

Zanu PF Gutu South MP Shuvai Mahofa chairs the 17-member committee, dominated by the ruling party.

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