Salomo Ndeyamunye yaNdeshimona

In 1848, the first-ever liberal-infested convention on women’s rights was convened at Seneca Falls in New York. 

This became the mother of many other conferences on women’s rights, such as Mexico in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi in 1985 and Beijing in 1995. 

These conferences bore many advantages toward equalising women – and many more schemes and projects were later on initiated to favour women in a so-called men-dominated world. 

Programmes such as DREAM, Window of Hope and STEM, as well as policies such as the infamous pregnancy policy in Namibian schools were initiated to aid women. 

Affirmative action was also enacted into our Namibian constitution. Ministries, such as that of Gender, Equality and Child Welfare, were born out of these conventions and conferences, which aimed at addressing the plight of women in the world and making the world feminine. 

 The world has been redesigned to favour the girl child and at the disbursement of sidelining the boy child almost into extinction. 

 The boy child has become an endangered species, which was once most feared, respected and cherished since the beginning of days – even the holy Bible. Societies have high expectations of the boy child. 

A man is regarded as the breadwinner and head of the house. A man must provide for his wife, family and relatives. A man must perform in bed – so many expectations have become a burden on the boy child. 

 This has turned out to be a threat to the boy child’s life and his welfare. All these high expectations have led to the boy child reacting in a manner that has threatened our societies. 

The boy child is filling our prison cells because of his evil deeds. The boy child is raping, stealing and killing the female gender as a reaction. His deserted psychological needs have led the boy child into suicide. 

 It has been reported recently in news media that about 790 suicides have been reported in Namibia between 2020 and 2021

 Out of that number, 649 were men, which is about 82%. The Namibian population is said to be short of the male gender, according to the 2011 census statistics already. 

If you go into our psychiatric wards, prison cells, school dropout and unemployment rate, the boy child still outnumbers the girl child. 

Yet, society still expects him to provide and be magical. 

 When will our society look at all these statistics and act to say maybe we are neglecting the plight of the boy child? In the animal kingdom, animals are said to react with a defence mechanism against the threat. 

 When, for instance, a snake feels threatened, it strikes in retaliation and defence of itself then we call it a snake bite. 

 What if the boy child is stealing, killing and raping in defence against a threat to their life? I am not writing to condone killing, raping or stealing by the boy child, but my wishes are to open society’s eyes to a blind spot that none care to look at.

 It is, therefore, in my submission to say it is time we practise social care, love, and cherish the boy child the same way they do the girl child. 

 It is time we look at his needs and create programmes that will advance the boy child not to react in the way they are doing at the moment. 

Every thief, killer and rapist came from home; it is time that each household gives love to them. 

 When they feel loved, they are less likely to commit these heinous acts of ferociousness as society has seen recently. 

We should, however, be prepared to take the blame if we are to sit idle and pretend all is fine with the boy child – whilst at the same time we leave him under a mountain of expectations. 

We should have conferences and conventions to listen to the boy child if we are to solve all these so-called passion killing, raping and all sorts of evil acts associated with the boy child. 

Prayer alone cannot solve these problems for us, but action will. It is time the boy child stops being a school dropout, alcoholic, drug addict and barbaric as we have come to label them. 

 This can only come to fruition if we start showing them that we care and love them, plus put the measure to advance their plight as well, or else endangered species will continue to strike in defence against the attack we have left the boy child alone to fend for self. 

We must hug the boy child similarly as we hug the girl child; let us show them that we care for them as we care for the girl child. 

We shall motivate the boy child, advice, counsel and cherish them so that they too can feel our love as a society. 

A pet hardly strikes the one who feeds and pats them.