After a hotly contested General Election, the month of June is one that comes up with , what President Cyril Ramaphosa has coined, a “new dawn”. Evidently significant in this regard in this youth month is the increased number of Members of Parliament that were recently sworn in for the 6th administration.

According to the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, in terms of South Africa’s definition of youth (14 to 35 years old), the presence of youth MPs has also almost doubled in the sixth democratic Parliament.

Of the youth MPs in the sixth democratic Parliament, 45 are NA MPs and six are NCOP Permanent Delegates. Of the total 51 youth MPs, 22 are women and 29 are men, Parliament said in a statement.

Some of these MPs include Itumeleng Ntsube of the African National Congress, as well as Sibongiseni Ngcobo of the Democratic Alliance. The two MPs will serve their term as the youngest MPs to be sworn in as law makers of the Republic of South Africa, aged 20 and 24, respectively. Fifteen youth MPs are younger than 31 – nine men and six women.

It is Parliament’s opinion that the increase in young public representatives in the Cabinet and Parliament will further boost the national endeavour to tackling particularly the socio-economic challenges confronting our nation’s youth.

A StatsSA survey released last year showed that ours is mainly a young and female society. Women make up 51% of our population and 35.7% of our population is between 15 and 34 years old.

-Parliament

-StatsSA

-The VIP Team

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