By Tina Amanda
Drug abuse, gender-based violence, and other related mental instability crime perpetrated by boy children in society have been attributed to improper training and grooming of boys at a tender age.
Director of Boy Child Support Network, Paul Gibson, disclosed this during a one-day training for FIDA partners on gender base violence, organized by FIDA Rivers State in Port Harcourt, said the negligence of the boy child has caused a lot of harm in the society.
According to him, they are advocating that the boy child should be groomed and trained equally as the girl child to reduce most of the social vices and problems encountered in society.
Gibson explained that the lack of training boy children to be cultured and responsible as the girl child has caused society to produce so many irresponsible grown men.
“Like we always say if the boy child is properly trained and groomed it will reduce lots of crime in the society. The negligence of the boy child has caused a lot of harm in society.
“We are advocating that the boy child should be groomed and trained as the girl child to reduce most of the problems encountered in society.
“We know we can not totally eradicate these vices and problems but it will be reduced to the barest minimum. That is why we are advocating that the boy child should be given proper attention by the parents, individuals, and society.
“Lots of boys have been abused but have no knowledge of the correct procedure of reporting, we have been taught of the procedures of reporting GBV. The training organized by FIDA is timely it has opened our eyes to some laws we have neglected so far.
“We are encouraging parents to pay attention to the boy child most of these abuses that happen in our environment if parents were attentive and watch out for the signs they will know the right steps to take”.
Also, the Chairperson International Federation of Women Lawyers FIDA Rivers, Adata Bio-Briggs, said the training of its media are social workers’ partners on protocols and referral pathways on gender base violence matters, is to bring access to justice closer to the grassroots and to know the first point of call when a child is need of protection.
“We have realized that some of our partners do not know how to handle gender-based violence GBV issues, we decided in order to fulfill our mandate and bring access to justice closer to the grassroots we should train our partners on the protocol of referral pathways.
“It will make access to justice easier for the society. The training is basically for our partners to be abreast of what to do when they encounter children who are in need of protection.
“Gender-based violence is under-reported having trained some of our partners will help in gathering the reports of GBV and improve the reporting protocol. I believe the training will help to reduce GBV because people will become more aware and the culture of silence would be cut off”.
