Men are pillars of society. Men provide protection, drive and provide security. With this in mind, we never realize that men also need protection. Our current society protects girls. The boys are just careless, but they need protection just like the girl, if not much more. Young male children must be raised, guided and disciplined. They need the security provided by both their parents and society.
In Kenya today, many children experience hardship in a variety of ways, including:
- Leave school: Although the number of boys enrolled in school is relatively higher than that of girls, the dropout rate of boys cannot be ignored.
- In areas where parents value basic education, boys are more likely to drop out than girls. Many children lack parental guidance. Due to peer pressure and a lack of father figures, the children end up dropping out of school. Lack of father figures, one may wonder. The children, mainly from poor families, have parents who use alcohol and drugs. Many locally made substances are available at low cost in the village. Many young people end up in illicit beer dens and drink all day. All the money they earn is drained into alcohol. These are the father figures young people should look up to.
- The other reason for school dropout is the lack of school fees. As much as school fees are heavily subsidized in Kenya by the government offering free primary and secondary education, there are various school needs that are not included in the free education scheme. Children going to school are required to have a school uniform and have writing materials which, if not provided, will cause them to miss days of school and eventually drop out of school.
- Young people from pastoral communities drop out of school to follow initiation rites. In rural Kenya, children go through rites of passage into adulthood and immediately take on more responsible roles, including raising a family.
- Drugs abuse: Drug abuse is rampant among teens. Peer pressure often found fault. Young male children are introduced to drugs at an early age and mainly to smoking. Smoking kids are heroes in their peer group. To maintain status and pressure, many guys start smoking and are eventually introduced to hard drugs like marijuana. When you start using drugs, the addiction is paramount; you become a slave to the drug. All of their income and energy is directed towards drugs and their availability, leading to a lack of self-esteem and eventually death due to drug overdose, disease, or suicide.
- Absent parents: When parents are absent due to divorce, death or at work, children lack security. Men give protection. A boy whose father is absent ends up feeling obligated to protect his brothers and his mother. Without a father figure to look up to and guide, the boy grows up wayward and lacking in morals, not trusting his mother to guide the man in him. When he is a grown man, he cannot offer protection or security because he was not protected or given security.
- Grow with uncertainties: When parents separate their children, they mainly blame themselves for the breakup. Children carry the burden in their minds to fill the void left by their father. Their brothers look up to them for provision. Children become victims of circumstance and end up doing anything, including joining gangs. Others in herding communities are forced to care for livestock at a young age and miss out on school and childhood as they take on more responsible roles. They grow up without finding themselves and discovering who they are.
- Most donor-funded and aid organizations focus primarily on girls. Many schools that offer a home environment are geared towards girls. Girls get protection from early marriage, sexual abuse and female genital mutilation (female circumcision). Many boys who impregnate young girls must marry the girls or assume the duty of raising the children while they are still in their teens. In many cases of teenage pregnancy, girls are counseled and boys are exposed to stigma. When we focus so much on the girls at the expense of the boy, the question becomes who will marry the nurtured girls if the boys are not nurtured.
To protect the future generation, we need a holistic approach to protect our children. Boys, the pillars of tomorrow, protect them today.
