When the boy child enters his early primary school level he faces many challenges. Not only is he presented with obvious challenges such as learning and interpreting subject specific information but also understanding his masculinity while striving to understand the behaviour of his counterpart, the girl child. Bullying is one aspect that sometimes surfaces when the boy-child experiments and in household chores, he is given the impression that he has power over every aspect of the girl and women’s lives.
The boy child may also fall prey to not only physical abuse, but emotional as well, driven by various traditional and cultural dynamics from his early household confinement and other community aspects, of entering a new development stage. The boy child also strives to learn the appropriate way of handling pressure of being disciplined both at home and at school, which eventually may grow with him and result in being unable to control methods of discourse within his marriage, family or in a cohabitation setup.
The focus of addressing GBV should shift and pay attention to both genders, boys and girls, because if not, blame shall remain on labelling the boys and men as exclusively the perpetrators of the scourge.
It should be understood that both genders are trying to make a balance in life. Challenges to both genders often arise from alcohol and substance abuse as well as other complications such as the web of sex and multiple relationships.
In getting opinion about the matter, Mmegi approaches a young man in the Main Mall, Shatho Keatla, a third year student of Accounting Finance at the Botswana Accountancy College, who is quick to share his thoughts about the multiple lives of a typical tertiary level boy.
“Coming to the city can be hard and nice at the same time especially for newly enrolled students. “Different environment, cost of living and meet and greet new people, are some of the driving factors of distressful moments in university life,” he shares.
Keatla says while most of the kids are new to town or city life, they also encounter challenges of taking on major responsibilities in their youthful lives on their own in the university community.
“There is also a role that guardians and parents should play, in guiding their children towards a better life going into the future. “Children should be guided to reach a stage where they can adapt to a life of single young adulthood, which can also come with peer pressure from children of different backgrounds, such as those from well-off families.” Keatla says some of his peers were unable to cope with the societal changes and succumbed to drug use and excessive alcohol intake. This in turn, led them to indulge in unsafe sex, coupled with multiple relationships, resulting in instances of common assault and even attempted murder cases.
“I think we should change the way we address gender-based violence in our country and go deeper in introspecting at different forums to understand the various traditional and cultural dynamics of community set ups that a boy child goes through,” he noted.
NB: Next week’s edition, will focus on the traditional and cultural dynamics that affect the upbringing of the boy child
