Residents in Ndola are worried over the increase of under age patrons in most nightclubs.
Speaking to ZANIS in an interview, one of the residents complained that a lot of teenagers were found in nightclubs at awkward hours and that the owners of the clubs seemed to be comfortable with the development.
Mrs Lydia Mungwe of town center said she had observed that most teenagers went to
town after the normal hours and were found in most of the nightclubs around town,
she wondered how these children leave their homes and what they tell their parents.
Mrs Mungwe called on parents to be concerned with the activities that their children
took up and added that it was wrong for parents to leave the duty of parental guidance to schoolteachers.
She advised that parents should work hand in hand with their children’s teachers so
that the children were controlled and monitored throughout.
Mrs Mungwe said that asking the owners of the various night clubs to chase under age
patrons from their clubs was just a sheer waste of time, as they were in the business to make profits.
She called on the relevant authorities to move in and revoke licenses of the nightclubs that took in under age children. She advised that at times the local authorities should carry out unexpected on-the-spot checks, so that they could see for themselves what happens.
She said such vices if not curbed could be a contributing factor to the increase of
the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the Copperbelt.
The collapse of the family system in Zambia has erroded our family values. The work of govt will be more successful if family values are taught to the youth.”No under age” is no longer a law but a thing seen as acceptable.Let work to preserve and promote the values cherished by families and then are going to build a strong and vibrant nation.The faillure to keep values in the walls of our own homes is a trickle down to community,society and national tragedies.
All this is the result of poverty. If the Govt can clear out poverty then this problem will solve itself. Mind you I have heard of parents who have been encouraging their children to engage in such behaviour (Not all parents I should point out). When there is a problem always look at the root cause and then come up with suggestions on how this can be solved. If the national Cake is shared equally i am sure these kids will stay home
Justice, i hope you are not such a parent.The root casuse is family values.I grow uo in a village and i was poor, but that did not mean that i had to choose the wrong side.What Zambia is lacking is the promotion of moral absolutes. On the other hand i agree that poverty is also the driving force.Let us work together to build a vibarant society because the youths are the future of tomorrow.
The issue teenage drinking and night club patronage highlights the degree of lack of law enforcement. We have laws that prescribe ‘legal’ drinking age but never enforced. What is the punishment for bar owners found serving alcohol to minor? Last year we had school kids partying at a night club resulting in the death of some,and the bar is still operating. Kelvin, in the USA can you afford tosell alcohol to a minor and get away with it? So, for as long as the Government continues to sleep and our Police wait to get instructions from politicians on who and when to arrest and prosecute, our kids are destined for a disaster. Justice, there is no poverty in USA but kids still have access to alcohol. The difference here is that laws are strictly enforced. If you are found to have sold alcohol to an underage, you are prosecuted and lose you licence – Final. When are we ever going to enforce the laws?
We can have all the laws we want but if there is no one to enforce them then it is a waste of time. The mandate of the Police is to protect the public and enforce the law and not to wait for politicians to remind them of their job and duty. Seeing the state of the civil service as whole (poor employment conditions,etc) it is no surprise that the police look the other way when it comes to enforcing the law. We all know that the political machinery is unreliable and slow; it is unwise for the concerned citizens to wait on politicians to act. It is our duty to inform our politicians(MPs,etc), Councils of what we need done in our communities and why they should do their job. We can dissect on reasons why societal moral values are going downhill until cows come home: what are we doing about it?
This is an interesting debate. All the above folks are obviously right. But social problems of modern society are very complex. So kids in 2 different settings will portray similar behaviour for completely different reasons. So everyone analyses the issue from their own narrow perspective. Causality is imporssible to ascertain.
Accordingly, I have to agree with Justice. To me, at a broad level (not individual household level) poverty has had a lot to do with the school drop outs, HIV mortality and social despair, leading to under-age drinking and other vices. But others could easily reverse this causal hypothesis.
The problem we have in our beloved developing countries is that most areas or sectors are not regulated, so what do you expect. Perhaps we should consult a Mr Hanif Adams to help us in this area, seriously! This is because I remember as a student at UNZA back in the late eighties, youngsters like us could not enter Valentino’s night club without producing a valid ID such as National Registration card. However, with so much corruption in our beloved Zed, I don’t seem to figure out how we can stop this sad situation!
You are right KM. I grew up in Chamboli, and much as it was notorious, we were not allowed to enter any beer halls because laws were stricly enforced. Parents did not send children to buy beer, as is the case today. Much as poverty may have contributed to the increase in beer drinking, law enforcement has ‘gone to the dogs’. The police has been transformed into an institution of corruption and has become more reactive than being proactive in enforcing laws.The waste development, as I pointed out in my earlier contribution, is that our politicain do no seem to address the issue of police service. In the last 15 years, there has been no legislation aimed at empowering the police to be more effective. The little changes that we have seen with the police are self initiative by the police without any legislation to back their actions. Our politicians only address the police when they want someone arrested. The first step is PROPER LEGISLATION to empower the police.