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In its latest annual report, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC)moved decisively into seeking far more effective action against three areas of crime that largely victimise the young and vulnerable and are grossly under-reported. 

Far too few of those who commit these crimes are brought to justice.

The commission highlighted the serious problems of illegal early marriages, gender-based violence and drug use driven by dealers targeting young people.

In some ways it is odd for such a commission to involve itself in crime prevention and seeking better enforcement of what are now fairly good laws, but when people think about the report, as they should, the stance of the commission makes sense. 

These three areas of crime cause more damage to society and the individuals that make up society than any other crime.

Most violent crime and theft is reported, and the police do a very good job of hunting down those who commit the worst reported crimes, such as murder, robbery and thefts, and the courts are keen on long prison terms as the police arrest the criminals and provide the evidence. 

Corruption has now joined the league of crimes that are normally reported, and again the prosecution rate has gone up, become more effective and the courts are keen on severe sentences as a deterrent.

But as the commission has noted, there are a lot of underage marriages that are not reported, and despite the major changes to our law in the Constitution and now in the statute legislation, such marriages are still common.

Admittedly they are unregistered customary unions, with everyone very careful not to tell the authorities, including the local traditional leadership, but then most marriages in Zimbabwe are still of this nature, despite the major overhaul of the Marriages Act.

Enforcement appears difficult.

While anyone over 18 involved in such a marriage, and anyone arranging such a marriage, and these have to be arranged between the families, hardly anyone is ever arrested or brought before the courts.

It appears that communities and perhaps the authorities want to deal with this crime by converting families and communities, rather than coming down hard on the practice.

Traditional leaders have been more active in recent years, and will impose civil penalties as well as refusing to recognise the resulting marriages, but they have no criminal jurisdiction and for a host of reasons those involved in the practice are largely absent from the criminal courts.

But the position remains, as the commission noted, that teenage girls have their life devastated as they end schooling early and take up the burden of adulthood, including early motherhood.

Gender-based violence is now being tackled more thoroughly, but there is still a major problem of attitudes in society and a major problem of getting the crime reported. Most such violence is of men against women, and many wives and other female dependants have both come through society pressure where such violence is acceptable, and are concerned that jailing their major breadwinner will lead to even worse problems.

But at least efforts are now being made, far more cases are reported to the police, who have trained suitable officers to handle this type of crime and stationed them at every police station across Zimbabwe.

The courts, both criminal and civil, are dealing with the issues effectively.

The main area of concern is that too few are still coming forward.

Drugs are regarded as a major problem, and statistics suggest that teenagers and young adults are the most prolific users.

These groups do not make, or even market, the drugs they consume, so someone is selling them to youngsters. Wrecking a large number of lives seems irrelevant to those who want to make money.

Again we have a crime that is very poorly reported. Very few drug users and no drug dealers want the police to find out what they are doing. But these are not the classic victimless crimes since the victims are the users, even when they refuse to step forward.

Communities can, and increasingly are, providing the police with information which is helping to raise the arrest rate of dealers. The police and courts already separate dealers and users, the dealers going to court and usually then to jail, while users are fined, often at police stations, and then advised on where to get help. 

It should be possible to even grant immunity to users prepared to give information and testify.

While courts can make an inference that if a person possessing drugs has a large quantity, this is unlikely to be for personal use and so there is a probability that they are a dealer. But it would be easier to prove dealing if customers came to court, even as accomplice witnesses. 

The commission was keen on higher sentences for dealers, especially those who sell to the young, and they have a point.

But the courts have been raising the sentences and dealers rarely escape with less than three years behind bars.

The bigger problem is that only a small fraction of dealers, even with the major police effort, ever come to court.

Like the other two heavily unreported but serious crimes that destroy so many lives, drug dealing will be defeated through a variety of approaches, but one of these is to get people who know about the dealers to tell the police, and for the police to then take action.

The other approach is for youngsters to reject the pressure of others and the charm of dealers and simply reject drugs.

So the NPRC has a strong point. There are crimes, these seriously under-reported crimes that damage so many young lives and the lives of so many others, and as a result they go beyond the ordinary crime, that is dealt with effectively, and fall into a gap where they damage society severely as well as their victims.