The National Ministry of Peace Building has called on public and private sectors to support the Youth through technical skills and financial empowerment.
Officials say this will stop young people from engineering ongoing gun violence and help to promote peace in the country.
This came during the commemoration of International World Peace Day in Juba on Wednesday with the theme “End Ethnic Discrimination, Build Peace in Diversity.”
The Undersecretary at the Ministry of Peace Building, Pia Philip Michael, says durable peace will be realized only if the government of South Sudan gives the Youth sustainable life skills that will enable them to have alternatives to violence.
He warned that the government should not just think of disarming the youth without giving them alternative skills for their livelihood. Pia says the government also needs to focus on the economic empowerment of women.
He says when women are empowered, families will be stabilized and the incidence of Gender Based Violence will drastically reduce.
“We need to give our youth sustainable livelihood skills so that they have an alternative to life rather than violence,” Michael stated.
Civil Society activist, Edmund Yakani, urged political leaders to distance themselves from the deployment of the graduated unified forces.
He says the leaders should not always use violence as the only option to resolve their grievances, especially during the redeployment of the unified forces. Yakani said the redeployment of unified forces should be free from political motives.
“We need to see the unified forces being redeployed without political motive and we want to make sure that our men and women in uniforms are given full freedom to redeploy based on merits and application of the law,” Yakani stressed.
The Leader of the Women’s bloc, Amer Manyok Deng, called for speedy implementation of the Revitalized peace agreement roadmap.
She said the parties should complete the remaining chapters in the agreement for the country to conduct a free and fair election.
“We hope the parties implement the roadmap without delay because women are tired of war and we want peace to be given a chance in the country,” Deng expressed.
Last month, the parties agreed on a detailed roadmap and extended it by 24 months to enable the parties to complete the remaining tasks in the revitalized peace deal.