{"id":39871,"date":"2025-09-23T10:46:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T08:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/?p=39871"},"modified":"2025-09-23T10:48:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T08:48:34","slug":"39871","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/23\/39871\/","title":{"rendered":"Unemployment driving Youth into Gang Groups, Officials Warn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By James Innocent<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Local officials and community leaders have raised alarm over rising gang activity among young people, attributing the trend to unemployment, poverty, and lack of parental guidance.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the media, Azania Amude, Acting Director of Gender and Social Welfare in Yei River County, said unemployment and poor parental care are fuelling the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNinety percent of the young people have joined gang groups because parents are not adequately providing basic needs. Many parents are vulnerable, forcing children to drop out of school or enter early marriages, leaving them with little choice but to join gangs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Amude urged parents to take greater responsibility during their children\u2019s adolescence, describing it as a critical stage where guidance is essential.<\/p>\n<p>Community member Babe Onesmo called on the county\u2019s gender department to step up public awareness campaigns through radio programs and grassroots engagement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCommunity leaders should be more involved so the message reaches beyond the towns. Some leaders fail to even meet with their communities,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<p>Youth leader Gaga Frank Osman of the Yei River County Youth Association urged young people to reject negative influences and instead focus on peacebuilding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must work for peace and development rather than joining destructive groups,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The concerns highlight growing frustration over joblessness and weak social structures, which community leaders warn could further destabilize South Sudan\u2019s fragile peace if left unaddressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By James Innocent Local officials and community leaders have raised alarm over rising gang activity among young people, attributing the trend to unemployment, poverty, and lack of parental guidance. Speaking to the media, Azania Amude, Acting Director of Gender and Social Welfare in Yei River County, said unemployment and poor<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/23\/39871\/\">[Read More&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":39872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Employment.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39874,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39871\/revisions\/39874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}