Mereja Forum

[Awash]

https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2019-08 ... n-eritrea/

[Awash]

...Life as a public secondary school teacher across East Africa is tough, but in Eritrea, hardship takes on a whole new meaning.

Most teachers are national service conscripts. The government forces them into teaching, often posts them far from their homes to teach subjects they have little expertise, and makes them stay in these post for years, often indefinitely.

Most Eritreans aged 18-50, some younger or older, are forced into national service. They are placed on a conveyor belt into national service during their last year of secondary school at “Sawa”, a military training camp in the west of Eritrea near the border with Sudan. This August, as each year, thousands of Eritreans will be separated from their families and bused off to the remote, hostile Sawa. From there, they are forced into the military or – after college – a civil job.

This indefinite national conscription - essentially forced labour - has earned Eritrea the reputation as one of the most repressive countries on the continent and has sent hundreds of thousands of Eritreans, many of them children, into exile.

In July 2018, Eritrea ...

Continue reading: https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2019-08 ... n-eritrea/