Every year on the 11th of October we celebrate the International day of the girl child, a day set aside to support more opportunities for girls and increase awareness of gender inequality faced by girls worldwide. But as we celebrate the girl child we should also reflect and ask ourselves questions.

To what extent have we empowered the girl child in the country?. What we have so far done is making the girl child and women assertive and knows that they have rights to fight for, but still they cannot access the rights they are entitled to.

When faced with life challenges men tend to use work as an excuse and most end up in bars resulting to them arriving home late and drunk.  This takes them deeper into drugs and substance abuse which has become a national problem threatening to cripple the nation.

Women though empowered bear the heavy burden of caring for the family single handedly. However all is not lost and we can start a new balanced empowerment legacy. As an individual, you can choose to become a role model and empower the future generation.

As much as we try to empower the girl child let us not forget that it is also important to not neglect the boy child in this empowerment.

This is a country of equalization and we must empower both the boy and the girl child at equal rates. The nation will be built by the strength of both the boy and the girl child. Let us not emphasize more on one side and leave the other in a lower rate.

Therefore its upon all of us to make sure that when we get a chance to empower a child let us do it on equal basis noting that the mentorship you give to the this young ones will be effective to the future ,lets empower both the boy and girl child at an equal ratio.

Recent statistics by education scholars regionally, show that women are crowding up men in popular scholarly classes with the exchange of sex to earn grades or marks from the male lecturers. This has also reflected in the job recruitment and employment opportunities available.

Gender equity notions are erroneous and deceptive. If we de-construct this “truth” from a philosophical point of view, we find that more boys end up in crime than girls; there are more boys in the streets than girls; more boys end up in prison than girls; and research shows that more men die faster than women.

Once a boy child is branded and labelled by society, he keeps the tag into adulthood. Society neither forgives nor forgets the transgressions of a boy child easily.

The abuse of a boy child — whether physical, verbal, psychological or sexual — is always swept under the carpet. But if a girl child is concerned, all hell breaks loose.

My line of work has exposed me to heart-rending cases of abuse of the boy child. In all the cases, the victims become bundles of anger, lies and delinquency.

Why should the boy child of today suffer just because historically the girl child was marginalized? Aren’t we also creating disparities that would need future rectification in the process?

Both boys and girls need to be educated and mentored. We will be going wrong as a region if we give much attention to the girl child and forget that tomorrow will come when we will need the boys to become men.

There is need for more men to come out as mentors for the boy child, to guide and teach them what is expected of them as they grow up into men. After all we need each other for a healthy nation.