Youth Problems

‘’Once again an unacceptable situation has arisen regarding our Youth. It has become apparent that there are a number of schoolboy gangs going around to various social functions in Harare, intent on beating up targeted individuals as a form of entertainment. Once they have targeted someone, one of the youths will start an argument with the target and then invite him outside to ‘discuss’ the issue further. Should the target be naïve enough to go outside, he will be confronted by 5 or more other youths, who will then proceed to assault him. There have also been instances where assaults of this kind have occurred inside the premises, as the target has refused to go outside. I speak from first hand experience as my son was targeted and only escaped being assaulted because friends came to his rescue. I have since been reliably advised that this is a fairly regular occurance at most youth functions. Such gangs also have another game they like to play and that’s, ‘ballie bashing’, which simply means they target an older person and then follow the same process as described in the above. Excesssive drinking by such youths normally preceeds the planned assaults, which further adds to an already potentially deadly situation.

Before some unsuspecting party gets seriously injured, I think we all need to aware this situation and utimately identify and deal with such predators. This kind of unacceptable behaviour cannot be allowed to continue, the sooner we set a precedent and deal effectively with these individuals, the better’’.