The socio-economic hardships that are being faced by many young people in Zimbabwe have caused a lot of disaster in their mental health. We can imagine how painful it can be for someone to spend all their time in school and never get employed after graduation with very slim chances of establishing a successful business. All this accompanied with extreme power cuts, can cause too much idleness hence people end up doing wrong things.
Young people are resorting to drug and substance abuse for pleasure purposes and some just want to fit in certain groups of people. There is not much to do in the country because it is very difficult to make money. Children are spending much of their time in the streets wasting their lives away.
Many children in Zimbabwe are being taken care of by relatives or someone else whilst their parents are away working and trying to make ends meet. Yes, some of these kids are well taken care of but there are some who being abused physically and emotionally. Times are tough and nobody really has enough to accommodate more people in their homes and feed them. The parents may be sending money but still the guardian is most likely to look after themselves and their kids first. At the end of the day, these victims’ resort to substance abuse be it alcohol or hard drugs.
Quite a lot of kids in school are being exposed to these things and they become curious about the experience especially when those who are doing it already explain the feeling. Peer pressure has lured many youths in schools and at home into substance abuse and they now find it difficult to pull out of the addiction.
One could be wondering why is it now so easy for these kids to access these substances. Well, its like you can find almost everything on Black Market. There are no rules on these markets as long as someone is making money. People are selling tobacco products, alcohol and marijuana to anybody despite their age. This has made it difficult for authorities to control the circulation of these substances in communities and schools. Corruption is also playing a big role.
Many young people are losing their sanity and some have ended up killing themselves in the process. The Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network in 2021 reported that 60% of psychiatric admissions were due to drug abuse with 80% of them being people aged 16-25. Some of the drugs being abused are not imported. They are made by mixing up chemical products like bleach and some are abusing cough syrups like bronclear and prescription drugs like morphine and ketamine.
As it stands right now, the situation is very bad but there is always a way out.