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
Ruling party should tread carefully on cadre deployment

But on the particularly sensitive question of cadre deployment, the BNF must tread very carefully.The issue deserves robust debate, not ideological enthusiasm. Recent public comments from the BNF leadership are reassuring: the party has said that government positions should be based on merit and competence rather than party membership, and that it does not have a specific cadre-deployment policy.That principle should remain firmly at the centre...

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