Chronicle Editor
Andile Tshuma
The question on whether Bulawayo is facing a parenting crisis or not is gaining momentum. Teenagers engage in delinquent activities with reckless abandon.
Although youth generally is considered the healthiest phase of life, it is also a time of exploration and experimentation, with sexuality being a major area of development and change.
A group of pupils enroute to a vuzu party was over the weekend arrested with large quantities of liquor, drugs, knives and condoms. A total of 131 youths were arrested.
So popular are these parties that they have become so attractive to the impressionable youths. This was a stark fact that sexual activity was planned and was going to happen. How many school-going pupils attend these parties successfully without getting caught? And how many of them actually think about protecting themselves from STIs and HIV?
While society may want to shy away from the elephant in the room, it is a fact that some young people are engaging in sexual intercourse during their high school years, and this is not only unique to Bulawayo. Questions have been raised on whether condoms should be distributed in schools or not. However, the proposals were faced by a massive backlash from members of the public. In 2016, Bulawayo, according to the National Aids Council (Nac), had the highest HIV prevalence rate.
What makes better sense, to keep preaching to indulging youths that they must abstain or to advise them to protect themselves? The unique bio-psychosocial changes associated with teenagehood results in youths displaying weird behaviour as they are caught up between childhood and adulthood as seen in Bulawayo.
With the headache of drug abuse among young people, schools are no longer safe havens in Bulawayo, and in cities generally around the country, they have become incubation hubs for junkies. Youths puffing all sorts of concoctions in alleys and street corners are becoming common in the city and this must be worrying for many parents and concerned citizens in general. When they are intoxicated, or high, as they love to call it, the possibilities of what they can do are endless, with group sex being one of the scariest.
The trend is growing and is tearing the moral fibre of the young. The prevalence of substance abuse among youth is alarming. The problem does not only harm individuals but also negatively affects families and society.
I remember at one time the adage “it takes a village to raise a child” was very much applicable in Bulawayo. Growing up in the township, every woman in the neighbourhood was your mother and had full rights to spank you if you exhibited any weird and unruly behaviour. If you went home to report the beating, you would only be met by yet another thrashing. People generally, I would like to believe, were better behaved than most youths of today. Nowadays your own mother can’t beat you. Corporal punishment has been outlawed. It makes one wonder if sparing the rod will do any good for the child. I am not a mother but I am someone’s child and grew up in an extended family set up. From observing the different parenting styles that I have seen, I would like to believe that spanking in moderation would do no harm to a child, but well I am not a mother.
Anyway, the weirdly sick culture among young people nowadays would send chills down the spines of most adults. From a health perspective, the thought of what happens at those parties is really scary.
Drinking, drug abuse, risky behaviour, unprotected sex, sharing of injections, unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, HIV, addiction, intoxication, marijuana, shisha, the list of what is associated with these vuzu parties is endless.
So how do children have healthy fun? I suppose the answer to that question would take another full page on its own.
During the raids where one group intercepted enroute to a vuzu party, police confiscated large amounts of liquor, drugs, condoms and sex enhancing pills, which is an indication that the scourge of vuzu parties in Bulawayo and other cities and towns has reached alarming levels. One can only wonder about the state of mental health of these children.
The alcohol and substance abuse menace, which is the lifeline of these vuzu parties, has caught the eye of the Health and Child Care Ministry which has begun to take mitigatory steps towards the fight against the phenomenon. Government must be commended for its commitment to set up a taskforce in an attempt to deal with alcoholism and substance abuse in the country.
Health and Child Care Minister, Dr Obadiah Moyo, speaking at an Alcohol and Substance Abuse Workshop recently, said his ministry was determined to end alcohol and substance abuse in the country.
He said Government was concerned about the growing trends of alcohol and substance abuse, and was seized with the matter of having good facilities that conformed to international standard practice for treating patients suffering from disorders associated with substance abuse.
To put the matter into perspective, Minister Moyo revealed that liquor and substance abuse was ranked among the top three diagnosis problems in all the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe in 2018.One cannot tackle these vuzu parties without addressing the issue of substance abuse.
Studies conducted among teens have identified a relationship between substance use and sexual risk behaviors such as having sex, having multiple sex partners, not using a condom, and pregnancy before the age of 15.
Researchers have found that as the frequency of substance use increases, the likelihood of sex and the number of sex partners also increases. In addition, studies show that sexual risk behaviours increase in teens who use alcohol, and are highest among pupils who use marijuana, cocaine, prescription drugs, and other illicit drugs. Teens who report no substance use are the least likely to engage in sexual risk-taking.
Sexual networking among intoxicated teenagers is really worrying and it is time something is done. If left unaddressed, this could be the rise of a lost generation. — @andile_tshuma
Online Reporter