Unemployment driving youth to alcohol, drugs – Amupanda

Affirmative Repositioning (AR) leader Job Amupanda says it’s sad to see that the country’s high youth unemployment rate is driving young Namibians to drugs, alcohol and crime.

This rate was 46,1% in 2023, according to the Namibia Statistics Agency.

Meanwhile, the preliminary results of the 2023 Housing and Population Census (HPC) indicated that 71,1% (2,1 million) of Namibia’s population are under 35 years old.

Amupanda, during a media conference at Katima Mulilo on Tuesday, said young people have given up on life due to unemployment.

He said during his visit to the town’s informal settlements, he has encountered a young man confessing to spend his days intoxicated as he is unemployed with nothing to do.

“The young man told me he abuses alcohol and drugs on a daily basis, and when he does not have money, he robs people for drug and alcohol money.

“Young people have nothing else to do but abuse drugs and alcohol. That is the case of many young people in the Zambezi region and the country as well.

“We need to ask ourselves how to solve these problems for them. We can’t have a situation where we govern a country of which the youth has given up on life,” he said.

Kongola-based socio-economic activist Glenn Shebo says he agrees with Amupanda’s remarks, saying poverty, and drug and alcohol abuse have become the order of the day.

He says unemployment also drives the youth to sex work and illegal poaching activities to earn money.

“The prisons are now filling up with young people who are forced to take part in criminal activities due to a lack of employment opportunities. Young girls engage in transactional sex just to get money to buy basic needs.

“These young people are brilliant, but due to financial challenges, not many make it to universities. If they are fortunate enough to go and complete their degrees, they just come back and remain unemployed.

“They then slowly lose hope. Many take their own lives, and those who remain, join the underworld, where the law of the jungle applies,” Shebo says.