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{
    "id": 94729,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/94729/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 216,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Laboso",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 63,
        "legal_name": "Joyce Cherono Laboso",
        "slug": "joyce-laboso"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this very important Motion. I want to start by thanking the Committee that worked very tirelessly and have come up with a very comprehensive Report. It is a job well done. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I stand to support this Motion because this is a phenomenon that is very worrying in our society. From the number of organized groups that have been enumerated in the Report you can see it almost covers the whole country. The fact that so many youth get involved in organized crime tells you that somewhere along the line, as a society, we seem to have lost our youth along the way without realizing that there was a big disconnect between the older generation and the youth. It is only beginning to dawn on us once these people have come out. I am sure this became very evident during the Post-Election Violence in 2008. We were swarmed by the number of youths who came into the streets and literally paralyzed the country. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, like the Assistant Minister has just said, it is important that we look at the issue of the youth with a view to addressing some of the issues that have been raised in several fora; why they get into these organized groups. Of course, a major factor which has been brought out over and over is the question of unemployment. I wound not want to overemphasize it but there is such a high rate of unemployment in this country. We are looking forward to the promulgation of the Constitution. When these resources start going down to the counties, I hope and believe this is going to be one of the ways we are going to address the very high unemployment rates and stop the many youth who keep coming to urban centres in search of jobs. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we must also not under-play the fact that these youth seem to be very disaffected. They seem to lack motivation. They seem not to have a clear vision of where they are going. Therefore, it is very easy for anybody who has ill motives to bring them into groups with very short term gains. I believe many of them just want instant gratification. They are given a few shillings and they are able to group and do something destructive. We need to address this phenomenon. We must use a multi pronged approach right from the home front and the political class which is often accused of using the youth to advance their various selfish agenda. They do this because they find the youth an easy target. As a result of this disaffection and lack of motivation, you have seen many youth have gone into alcohol and substance abuse. This is a very common phenomenon which we have had across the country. We are told it is no longer just a question of the HIV/AIDS scourge, the thing that is killing the youth and which is even a concern in my own constituency, is substance and alcohol abuse. I keep bringing it up over and over again. There are different forms of alcohol that have come into the market. We hope that the new Bill will address some of the problems we have had with those producing the alcohol that is literally killing our youth today. This is a very fertile ground for organized crime groups to be formed. On security, as the Committee identified, these people are very organized. They look like they have some form of training. I would like to suggest that maybe it would be important at this point that in each location the chiefs should have a record of the people in the location. This should be specifically for the ex-servicemen from the police and the ex-military. Where could these youth be getting the level of training that some of them have? They should be able to monitor the people in their locations and ensure that they are not engaged in training these young men. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would like to commend the work of the NYS but would also like to ask the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs to let the process of getting recruits to be more transparent. Can we have more transparent criteria of who and who joins them? I have tried to get a few of my young men to go to the NYS but it is a very difficult process. We do not really know who is eligible to attend the NYS. Let it be open to everybody and let us have a national programme where at some point the youth can attend the NYS. There are definitely very positive results once the youth have undergone that programme. As I conclude, I want to say that since we now have the Organized Crimes Bill can we see it implemented? We know that the problem we have had with the Bills that have passed through the House is the implementation. This is where you begin to see nothing happening. There is a lot of effort going into bringing Bills here but when it comes to implementation stage--- Let us implement those Bills and let them work for us and the youth of this country so that we can move forward. Before I end, I would like to say that the new Constitution that we have all very happily passed and endorsed overwhelmingly is also going to be a weapon or one of the instruments that will be used to address organized crime. We want our youth to be passionate about what they want to do. We want them to have direction and vision. We do not want them to get destroyed through organized crime. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}