The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Pius Bigirimana has appealed to the youth to join in the fight to against corruption in the country given the new digitized form that has made the vice very complicated to detect.
Bigirimana made the call on Wednesday while officiating at the launch of the Youth Justice Needs Report in Kampala organized by the Legal Aid Service Providers Network (LASPNET).
He labelled corruption as being “worse than cancer” saying that when it attacks the moral fabric, things fall apart and that it manifests itself is so many forms.
“Corruption is not only in the high levels of government but everywhere, even in homes at the family level were parents fail to pay school fees for their children but instead spend the money boozing,” Bigirimana said.
“You must have courage in fighting corruption, if we don’t fight it, it will finish us,” he added.
The Permanent Secretary observed that the Ministry in collaboration with other agencies like the Police, RDCs have taken strong measures against persons involved in corruption cases and some of them have been interdicted while others have been convicted.
LASPNET Executive Director, Sylvia Namubiru noted that the study established that generally, the circumstances resulting into youth being in need of justice services rotates around a number of issues which include; incidents of crime, land disputes, family matters and labour issues.
Namubiru said that the report has highlighted the need for the youth to be given priority in the administration of justice in the country.
“The youth form 78 percent of the population but the report noted that 62 percent of the people in prisons are youth who manifest in form of drug addicts, murders, theft and defilement,” Namubiru said.
She noted that the report further reveals that the youth find challenges in accessing justice since it involves high costs that can not be afforded by them due to fact that the majority of them are not employed and can’t pay for lawyers.
In its recommendations, the report proposed interventions like creating youth friendly justice services, providing specialized youth legal services, promotion of youth legal empowerment and addressing underlying causes of vulnerability.