Editorial
Youth reform programme needed
They are caught in criminality
Criminality has lately been taking a disquieting form in the capital. The recent arrest of a group of young men, all coming from well to do families, on charges of possessing such lethal drugs as yaba have only revived concerns about the damage being done to our youth largely on their own account. And possession, sale and inhalation of drugs are not all. There are also instances where youngsters appear to be veering toward increasing levels of violence and even outright murder. Quite some weeks ago, the sad story of a young man in his late teens made the rounds through the newspapers. Having gone out to buy blood for his ailing father, he was pounced upon by a group of young people of his age and soon bludgeoned to death in Uttara. Add to such grisly incidents one more, that of the young student found dead, his throat slit, on the rooftop of the building in which his family lives. He had earlier been called out by some people whom he obviously must have known.
Where criminality was earlier confined to youths from poor or underprivileged backgrounds, it is now the offspring of prosperous parents who appear to have decided to take up crime as a vocation. The bottom line is simple, which is that the young, rich as well as poor, have now turned into desperadoes inclined to committing anti-social activities which again may have roots in the twisted way in which they have emulated cultures not their own. Rackets of criminality have thereby grown, which in the long run threaten the already tattered fabric of our feeble social order.
There is, therefore, a powerful need to tackle what could soon turn into a national issue and so cannot be ignored. And one way of doing that is for the authorities to undertake a youth regeneration programme that will have as one of its responsibilities the task of steering these wayward, violent young back into a normal life through a corrective course of action. More fundamentally, such a programme calls for a concerted, well thought out plan of action, in terms of devising employment measures for the educated unemployed as well as those affected by unemployment in general. The young are additionally in need of outlets that will enhance their outlook through participation in cultural and social activities. In simple terms, the young can be held to gainful pursuits provided there is a clear strategy in this regard. Let the government directorates and NGOs focused on youth welfare and civil society leaders involve the whole community in responding to the challenge of channeling the youth power on to a constructive and creative path.
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