|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 9 January 2005 |
 |
|
 |
World |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Zambian street kids go to 'military camps' LUSAKA, Saturday (AFP) Zambia is beginning a new project this month to take street kids, most of them AIDS orphans, to military camps where they will learn carpentry and other skills. "We will begin with 50 street children this month," says Youth and Child Development Minister Gladys Nyirongo who pioneered the project to train the children and resettle them. Most children targeted for the training program are orphans who have lost their parents from AIDS and are trying to survive on the streets of Zambia's cities through begging and petty theft, Nyirongo said But Zambian rights activists are expressing concern over the plan, questioning the government's decision to send the children to camps run by the Zambia National Service (ZNS), a military wing which specialises in agriculture and skills training. "Our fear is that this programme may end up producing child soldiers," says Charity Konga, an activist working with children. "The government should have taken the kids to social welfare camps or orphanages and not those run by the military," says Konga. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
