Africa-Press – Zambia. Zambia is declining in all aspects, but we have focused so much on political and economic deterioration. Today, I want to address the issue of our youth, specifically students living in boarding houses. The reason being that we need to impart high moral standards amongst our youth as these are our future.
Numerous stories, including video postings, circulate on social media of our youths misconducting themselves, and we just laugh and brash it aside.
The concept of boarding houses, which is a good alternative as colleges and universities can not provide residential accommodation for students, has unfortunately brought a high level of immorality amongst our students. Landlords who are supposed to be guardians of these students are only interested in collecting rentals instead of enforcing strict tenancy rules to promote morality.
In the absence of the Ministry of National Guidance, the government has remained mute and is just watching immorality taking place in these boarding houses. Elderly men who are supposed to be parents and grandparents to these financially vulnerable young girls are at the forefront of exploiting and abusing them in boarding houses. Where will these young girls end up in the future?
We need to look at devising some form of regulations and introduce licensing for people running boarding houses to protect our young girls, including not allowing visitors at the boarding houses amongst other stringent measures. We can not just sit and watch seeing our children being abused, being destroyed in this way.
As the economic landscape gets harsher, these trends of immoral behaviour will be on the rise unless we arrest it.
Food for thought for us all and the ministries of Youth and Sport and Education. We need a healthy and morally upright society.
A report by the Ministry of Health showed that sexually transmitted infections are higher in the age range 16-25 years.
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