State lawyers argued that the law required that any person seeking to adopt a child in Malawi should have lived there for at least 18 months. That legal requirement was waived.The adoption raises several legal ethical, moral, legal and political questions, one of them related to the extent to which the Africans should surrender tradition, custom and folk culture to the blinding influence of American celebrity culture.The Day of the African Child offers the peoples of the continent an opportunity to reflect on the cultural aspects of child socialisation and development. The Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Peter Siele, recently reported that he and his ministry are setting out guidelines that will define child labour. The guidelines are expected to answer questions relating to reports of child labour on the farms most prevalent in the Northwest. The guidelines might also say when the work of children should be rewarded monetarily, and when it should be treated as part of the training of the child so that he or she becomes a good hardworking citizen. The World Cup has helped to highlight the problem of child trafficking. The Botswana National Front Youth League complains that the reduction of allowances of tertiary level students by P500 makes life difficult, particularly for those who come from disadvantaged families.The problem is much bigger than the student allowance. It widens out to the question of government priorities relating to expenditure on education as against spending on the army, spy organisations and other comforts of the president and his cabinet. This issue of The Monitor reports that the Southern Africa Youth Movement has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Botswana National Youth Council as part of an effort to establish a regional agenda for the youth at the Southern African Development Community. The measures reported above are only an indicator that there is some concern about taking practical steps to address the problems of the youth. Never has there been a shortage of concern. What there hasn't been is an equal resolve to do something about the problems referred to above. The time has arrived to move beyond the annual ritual of mourning the tragic events of June 16 in South Africa's Soweto. There is an urgent need for hands-on implementation of the well-thought-out programmes at SADC, the AU, the national parliaments, the UN, and the non-governmental youth organisations. Might we ask: What has SADC done for the youth in its 30 years of existence?
