Mmegi

The boy child crisis

By the wayside: The troubles boys go through at an early stage and later in life often play second fiddle to the challenges girls face
By the wayside: The troubles boys go through at an early stage and later in life often play second fiddle to the challenges girls face

As Botswana continues to grapple with gender disparities, buried in all the data that focuses on women empowerment is a disparaging and worrying trend of worsening conditions of the boy child. While much of the national discourse has rightly focused on empowering girls and closing the gender gap, new evidence suggests that boys are increasingly falling behind, raising critical questions about the inclusivity and effectiveness of current gender policies, write TIMOTHY LEWANIKA and SHARON MATHALA

Societies power structure have traditionally been skewed to favour men, with the means of production, and the economic artefacts of society in favour of patriarchal norms of society that place men at the forefront, to the disadvantage of their female counterparts.

While in the past years, society has made progressive efforts to improve the conditions of the girl child, it is becoming strikingly clear thaT the boy child also remains in the margins of society catching hell like their female counterparts.

Editor's Comment
Depression is real; let's take care of our mental health

It is not uncommon in this part of the world for parents to actually punish their children when they show signs of depression associating it with issues of indiscipline, and as a result, the poor child will be lashed or given some kind of punishment. We have had many suicide cases in the country and sadly some of the cases included children and young adults. We need to start looking into issues of mental health with the seriousness it...

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