October 2/2016 – Juba, South Sudan | Joseph 23 years old at Nyakuron Cultural Center in Juba.
“I wish change to be good we need Unity to move from a bad place to stay in a good place in South Sudan” Juba South Sudan
After independence in 2011, and particularly since 2012, when the new Government of South Sudan (GoSS) shut down its oil fields in a fee dispute with Sudan, the economy went into structural collapse. The outbreak of violent ethnically based conflict in December 2013 further deepened this and exacerbated existing regional, gender and class inequalities. It also resulted in the massive expansion of donor funded humanitarian assistance that still struggles to meet the basic nutrition needs of more than half of South Sudan’s population and provides minimal employment opportunities for its youth.Most young women and men now rely on informal sector trade, agricultural production and market and food service work to earn money to live. But this precarious economic picture means that young people are particularly at risk of voluntary or forced recruitment into government militias, armed opposition groups or the national security sector forces. These options, at best, provide only poverty-level income.
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