Garissa Children’s rights Officer Jeremiah Ndwele says we have focused on the girl child and forgotten the boy child, who is equally vulnerable, just like the girls.
“We forgot of the boy child, laid down programmes and procedures to safeguard the girl child and forgot our boys who are now roaming in the streets riding bodaboda to earn a living,” he says.
Ndwele adds that the rate of school dropouts among the boys especially in the marginalized areas is really worrying, and it has become harder to tame a lost boy unlike the ladies whom you can still have them back.
He now wants the government to lay down procedures to ensure the boy child is reached and their problems and difficulties in schools are addressed.
“It is always difficult to tame back a boy into education unlike the girls since the moment the boy child walks out of school, they devise ways to survive which include casual jobs and bodaboda riders, which makes it hard to tame them back unlike the girls who will stay back home,” he says.
He added that drug and substance abuse is common among the male gender.
“Boys are the ones affected the most by these cases of drug and substance abuse yet the government neglects this and generalizes them as youth instead of focusing on the boy child and ways to help them especially back while still in school,” he adds.