Ignore the boy child and court future violence

Over the next two or so weeks, the world will be engaged in 16 days of activism to highlight gender-based violence with a view to putting an end to it.

Since the campaign began many years ago, it appears all cases of gender-based violence have highlighted the plight of women and girls, with little focus given to men and boys.

Over the years, various organisations have come together with a clarion call to save the girl child and empower the woman.

But over in the boy/man camp, there has been little activity. Too few are talking about this group's legal/human rights or engaged in mentoring them to become men who will stand up and make a difference.

Indeed, who is encouraging our sons to sit up and take their studies seriously? To steer away from drugs, alcoholism and aggression? Who is telling them they were created to be leaders and showing them how to apply the principle of servant-leadership? Who is harnessing their God-given physical strength and directing it to protect rather than harm the vulnerable? Don't boys also need to be fought for?

Last Wednesday, the world marked International Men's Day and Ndiritu Njoka of Maendeleo ya Wanaume (Mawa) had said the focus would be on the boy child, "who is now Kenya's weaker sex". For the past seven years, Mr Njoka has zeroed in on defending the boy child whose plight he said had been largely ignored even though the Constitution states otherwise.

"Our Constitution talks about the rights of children, not a boy or girl. It says our children have a right to education, life and basic needs among other rights that are usually highlighted only for the girl child," he said.

In response, Mawa in March this year came up with a Boy Child Policy Bill, which they presented to the Attorney General and the National Assembly's Legal and Justice Committee. "Our Secretary, Waihenya Ndirangu, who is the MP for Roy Sambu, is going to table this bill in the National Assembly in February next year," Njoka said.

The bill is a compilation of issues Mawa needs addressed including the boy child's right to education, his role in the family and society and his place in the current quota education system, which makes it possible for more girls to access university than boys, among other issues.

And as we highlight and condemn all forms of violence, let us not gloss over this thing called militarism, which is affecting boys the most. Who appears to be most affected by radicalisation? Who are politicians using to commit acts of hooliganism? Which jails have more convicts; women's or men's? Isn't it our sons whose bodies are lying dead in the streets, shot for acts of aggression against their fellow citizens and the State?

According to Simon Mbevi, the founder of Transform Nations, most cases of violence against boys are by close relatives or peers. However, almost all the victims admit they have never told anyone about it.

WOUNDED MEN

"They fear stigmatisation; that they will not be regarded as 'man enough'," said Mbevi. "This is what ails and also perpetrates violence against men. So while women have avenues to vent their issues, men are taught to bottle it up, resulting in a generation of wounded men," he said.

While girls are busy in school, working hard to make something of themselves, boys appear to be wandering around in a daze. Years later, when the empowered female meets the male who has nothing more than his brute strength, guess what he will rely on to 'subjugate' her in order to make himself feel like a 'man'?

"Men and women live in the same world and cannot do without each other", Njoka said. "If you educate the girl and leave the boy out, who is this girl going to marry? What kind of home will they build when their levels of exposure are so different? We cannot focus on one and leave the other," he said.

As a mother of three sons, I look forward to a time when, across the country, real men will step up and teach the younger ones how to be men and help them understand their worth is not vindicated when they oppress, suppress or humiliate women.

Real men use their powers of negotiation, compromise, logic, reason, respect and consideration to influence society; they do not use brute force and bullying to force their way.

It is time the focus was balanced out and this could start with a proposal in the Boy Child Policy Bill to establish June 11 as the day to celebrate the boy child. Meanwhile, Transform Nations is pushing for a national commission to look into the boys' and men's issues.