ZIMBABWE

What about the boy child?

So much research, writing, oratory and action has been dedicated to the girl child, but nothing practical has been done for the boy child.
In fact, the phrase “boy child” probably doesn't exist. There are many organisations for “children” that are either concentrating on the HIV and Aids pandemic or the girl child. As far as HIV and Aids is concerned, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are making a killing.
Anything tagged “children, HIV and Aids and/or the girl-child” is a gold mine.
Though no one can dispute that all these issues are serious and need urgent attention, it, however, seems that they are being preached more for their market potential than anything else, which might explain why the boy child with his low commercial appeal has been sidelined.

It is a sad reality but in terms of “bread and butter'” considerations, the boy child just does not sell. It seems almost preposterous that anyone can take good money, form an NGO and carry out a crusade for the protection and rights of the girl child since it is assumed that the boy child's plate is already full of the good things in life.
However, such notions are erroneous and deceptive. If we deconstruct this “truth” from a philosophical point of view, we find that more boys end up in crime than girls; there are more boys in the streets than girls; more boys end up in prison than girls; and research shows that more men die faster than women.
In spite of the fact that I am a mother of only girl children, who loves her wonderful daughters very much, my counselling work has always involved the boy child. I found out that the neglect of the boy child is not only a problem in Zimbabwe, but is also rampant in the Southern African Development Community region. Once a boy child is branded or labelled by society, he keeps the tag into adulthood. Society neither forgives nor forgets the transgressions of boy children easily.

Yet at least 90 percent of the boy children I counselled between 1985 and 1990 are all responsible adults who are leading fulfilling lives.
The abuse of a boy — whether physical, verbal, psychological or sexual — is swept under the carpet. But if a girl child is concerned, all hell breaks loose.
I have seen so many young men's personalities and identities crushed in their early 20s and 30s, and my heart just bleeds for them. The damage done to a boy child is so hard to reverse in later life that is why today something must be done about the boy child.
I am not calling for the formation of new NGOs or Christian groups to deal specifically with the boy child, but I am asking for change and reflection, that national and individual NGO policies should have the boy child on their agenda as a distinct and separate concern. I am agitating for research and national statistics to be carried out on the boy child as is being done for the girl child.
Distinct units or departments within these organisations should be set aside with budgets specifically for the boy child.

Communities, families and churches should be held accountable for the life of the boy child. If in the process new NGOs are created to further the cause of the boy child — then that will be a bonus for society.
We need to change our warped and narrow-minded ways, and our prejudices and biases against the boy child. Everybody wants to have a “son” — but nobody wants to have the boy child. Everybody wants the son to grow into an adult “male heir” — but no one wants to groom the boy child to become a man.
It seems getting a “male heir” is more attractive than getting a man. But we forget that, as French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1788) said, nature has the children before they are men.
People will go to great lengths just to have a son and yet few are prepared to mould the son into a man.
My line of work has exposed me to heart-rending cases of abuse of the boy child. In all the cases, the victims become bundles of anger, lies and delinquency.
It pains me to find that various NGOs that deal with children — especially those dealing with children's rights and HIV and Aids — are not concerned about the abuse of the boy child.
They seem to believe that only girls can be abused as shown by the amount of information on the girl child, from Internet sites, magazines, books, films and so forth, yet there is nothing on the boy child.
If there are any NGOs dealing with the boy child, my apologies to them; they escaped my scrutiny.
It is a fact that it is not only fashionable, but also profitable to deal with the girl child.
Who wants boys in such a set-up, especially bad boys?

However, the questions I am asking society, NGOs, the donor community, churches and all stakeholders are as follows: Where can an innocent boy child go for help? Don't we also need “boy child” organisations for him?
Where can boy children go for help if they are not to turn from past victims to future perpetrators?
Why are the extended families in denial?
All the boy children we dismiss as “street-kids” — don't they also require our assistance? Anyway, which street has ever given birth to a child?
Should the boys be condemned, simply because they are not economically viable? Surely, a child is a child (mwana mwana chete). Why should the boy child of today suffer just because historically the girl child was marginalised? Aren't we also creating disparities that would need future rectification in the process?
Why should the boy child have to suffer this cold shoulder from society?
A few weeks ago, a lot of attention was paid when reports came into the public domain that young girls had been raped at Macheke Primary School. There was a social outcry, which is fine. I was quite touched by the plight of the innocent girls. The heinous acts of rape against the girls made me angry as well.
Yet over the years similar stories, though on a smaller scale, appear from time to time in the newspapers about sodomised boys, and all society has done is look the other way, hoping the cases will just die a natural death. At best, we have raised only faint whimpers and gone back to sleep.
I really hope this article will be a wake-up call to society.

The damage meted on sodomised boys is just the same as that done to raped girls; it involves the destruction of the identity and worth of the child in his own eyes, in the eyes of the perpetrator — his oppressor — and in the eyes of his extended family and society.
Parents and guardians of young boys should give them as much protection as they give the girls, for a child is a child and some in our twisted society consider them sexual objects regardless of gender.
As for the perpetrators, at the risk of sounding prescriptive, I sincerely believe that restitution to the victim or victims would help. A simple confession and genuine apology for the destruction done may be very therapeutic not only for the perpetrator, but also for the victims. This has been done in Australia, and it has paid dividends.
Various studies have shown that most boys or men who sexually abuse other boys would have been sodomised in their childhood. The fact that African society considers such topics taboo saw most of them go unchecked. The voices of the boy child of the past were silenced forever. They have only resurfaced with the sodomy of new generations.
Surprisingly, the information society we live in today continues to look the other way — but this time not because the topic is “taboo”, but because the issue of the “boy child” is just not profitable. One has to be in counselling to see some of the tragic identity aberrations that take place in the victims. Sodomy is as much an assault and violation of the victim as is female rape. Actually the distinction is only a question of semantics. The feelings of desolation, devaluation, worthlessness and powerlessness that grip the victims cannot be put into words.
The silence that surrounds the victims is sometimes impenetrable unless the counsellor earns their trust.
Unlike in other counselling sessions where trust is almost automatic with a little patience and perseverance, in sodomy cases, trust involves hard work. It must be earned. Only then can a way forward be mapped out.

For once, let us listen to the boy child.

Rose Okunrotifa
22 July 2005

 

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