Not just the girl child, boy child needs campaigns to protect their future
For years, Ghana has rightly campaigned for the education, safety and empowerment of the girl child. There have been scholarships, NGO projects, mentorship programmes, school talks, community donations and public campaigns urging society to protect girls from poverty, early pregnancy, child marriage, abuse and school dropout.
That work must continue.
But while society has learned to respond quickly to the struggles of girls, it has often been much tougher on boys. A girl under pressure is seen as needing care. A boy under pressure is told to be strong, stop crying, “man up” and find a way to survive. We praise him for suffering quietly, then blame him when that silence becomes anger, addiction, crime, depression, school dropout or hopelessness.
The boy child needs attention too.
He needs counselling in school, not only punishment when he misbehaves. He needs mentors who can teach him how to deal with failure, rejection, unemployment, heartbreak, peer pressure and anger. He needs public lectures on emotional health, responsible manhood, relationships, consent and fatherhood. He needs scholarships and donations when poverty threatens to push him out of school and into mining, street hawking, reckless riding or other dangerous work.
Education data show that Ghana cannot simply assume boys are doing fine. Although enrolment and completion patterns differ by level of education, UNICEF has found that boys make up a higher share of children who fail to complete primary and lower-secondary school in some periods. That should be a warning, not an excuse for society to look away.
Supporting boys does not mean abandoning girls. Women still face real inequality, including lower average pay in Ghana’s labour market. Ghana Statistical Service data show that women in paid employment earn about 34.2% less than men on average. The answer is not to make boys and girls compete for compassion.
The answer is balance.
The girl child deserves empowerment. The boy child deserves guidance, emotional support and investment. Ghana must stop treating the boy’s pain as weakness and start treating it as a national concern.
About The Author
