Harare - The Zimbabwe government plans to conscript thousands of street children into its controversial national youth service training programme blamed for converting youths into violently zealous defenders of President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu PF party. Well-placed sources said yesterday that the plan to press gang the street children into joining the government youth training programme was drawn up by a task force comprising police commanders and senior government officials, who justified the plan as a way to rehabilitate the children. Mugabe and his Cabinet approved the plan in March but it could not take off because there was no money for the unbudgeted conscription programme, the sources said. Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda, could not be reached for comment on the matter yesterday. Both Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi and his Small and Medium Enterprises counterpart, Sithembiso Nyoni, however confirmed the existence of the plan to force street children to join the government youth militia programme and said it would be implemented once resources were available.

Nyoni, whose ministry is pencilled in under the plan to help the street children set up self-help projects and small businesses once they have undergone training at the more than 10 youth camps across the country, insisted that the plan was still on the cards. “It is still on the cards. My ministry would make sure that once they graduate, we help them find their feet in industry,” she said. Mohadi said the scheme to train the youths was part of wider efforts by the government to remove street children and other people from the streets and rehabilitate them. Mohadi said: "Yes there is a plan to ensure that we rid our streets of these kids, some of whom are now adults. They have to be rehabilitated and the facilities and resources (to train and rehabilitate them) will be found." Under the plan, the police will round up all youths from the streets and take them to holding centres to be set up in every city and town. For example, in Harare, three holding centres are planned to be set up at City Sports Centre just outside the capital’s central business district and at Mai Musodzi and Stodart halls in the city’s oldest suburb of Mbare. Social Welfare officers from the government’s Department of Social Welfare would then vet the street children with those with traceable families taken back to their parents or relatives and the rest forcibly enrolled at the youth training camps.