By Florence Alaro
Empowerment is a process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, communities, and society, by acting on issues they define as important. It could be taken as increasing the spiritual, political, social, educational, gender, or economic strength of individuals and communities. Empowerment as it may seem, is a brilliant idea but our question is, what is the role of the boy-child in this dream that we are chasing?
In 1995 during the Beijing Platform of Action, the women’s movement took arms against Gender Inequality and flagged twelve key areas for urgent action to ensure that greater equality opportunities were promoted for both women and men as well as girls and boys.
The twelve critical areas included; Women and poverty, Education and training of Women, Women and Health, Violence against Women, Women and armed conflict, Women and the economy, Women in power and decision making, Institutional mechanisms, Human rights of women, Women and the media, Women and the environment and The girl child.
These set of principles, later turned out to be a resolution that was adopted by the UN as the Beijing Declaration. This resolution adopted to promulgate these set of principles concerning the equality of men and women for the good of all and also laid out concrete ways for countries to bring about the desired change.
It is over thirty years now and the girl-child has reaped much from what was done for her and we can say we have seen the fruits of this Beijing Conference. But our pending question now is, ‘what do we do for the boy-child’ who is lagging behind? We should be asking ourselves was it the right approach done at that time or something was missed out? I believe that it is high time various governments and people concerned do the same for the boy child to bring balance and co-existence in the community.
According to Doreen Asasira, from Empower Uganda, The boy-child, despite how society chooses to treat him, is still vulnerable. He is a child just like the girl-child, and therefore, should be handled with care. We should not sit back and assume that because he is male, the boy-child will figure his way out of problems. A similar guidance that was and is still given to the girl-child should also be accorded the boy-child.
She also emphasized that however important and appropriate things may appear the fact is; this has led to the negligence of issues facing the boy-child. Unfortunately, whenever the term boy-child is brought to the fore in any forum, many people make limited mental reference to a male-child and his access to education or lack of it, or to the lower standards of education available to him when compared to the girl-child. So as we advocate for the girl-child education, let us support endeavors to educate and empower the boy-child too.
For decades the boy child has overwhelmingly benefited from the male-controlled societies that have always prized the boy child over the girl child. As the world evolved, much attention and research has been focused on empowering the girl child to rise over this patriarchy and take control of the narrative. As less focus was placed on understanding the boy child, they are forced to shape their view and understanding of society and its requirement of them based on an archaic and flawed way of thinking.
In the past, men were the providers and protectors of the more ‘vulnerable’. Whichever way you look at this, it was a daunting task and an enormous weight a man must bear but as time went by, society evolved, the girl child was empowered and emancipated. Girls have risen to positions of power and have excelled at them.
One would think this would lessen the load men had to carry but just as something primal, the old ways still ring about in the boy child’s mind, remnants of the old generation’s wisdom passed on from generation to generation.
A boy’s father and grandfather will always chime into key decisions in the boy’s life and effectively steer it based on the old way of thinking. “Work hard, be strong, look after your family” is still the Swiss Army knife advice given to young boys in their formative years. The iteration of this blunt advice given to young men in turn created the inability of men to seek help, express emotion and will willingly do anything to appear to be successful.
Advocates call therefore, is for increased support too for the boy child to ensure equitable opportunities. As the government continues to scale up its efforts to empower the girl child and women’s rights, a section of the country is now calling for equitable initiatives to be put in place for the boy child and men.
According to rights watchers, efforts to empower girls and women have been successful and are now paying off dividends. There is however, a fear that the boy is now lagging, especially in areas of education, social integration, and development.
In June, the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataha Museveni said, the empowerment of girls should not be at the detriment of their male counterparts through continuous neglect. She observed that current trends indicate that the efforts in many projects towards the empowerment of the girl child has resulted in neglecting the psychosocial development of the boy child.
She added that, there is a need to change approaches that were used to support girl child empowerment in the society because if we do not, this will encounter significant challenges in the future. “The much-desired efforts to empower the girl child by channeling resources and opportunities to her well-being must be done with caution so as not to create a new form of imbalance for the boy child; to the detriment of the girl child,” she said.
We therefore must be mindful of how we address these imbalances, lest we paradoxically introduce a new form of social disadvantage, resulting in the boy child resorting to negative coping mechanisms such as vices of gender-based violence, addictions, and other abuses to fill the void created by the neglect of their psychosocial needs.
