History keeps rewriting itself, as they say, but it also keeps repeating itself. Man is supposed to learn from history and create a better world. It is evident that, that is not what is happening. We keep repeating the mistakes of our ancestors and causing the same problems we are trying to solve come back again. Each time they reappear we do realize after it has become worse.
A child is a treasure and a gift from the Almighty. A boy or a girl they are all children and both should be treated with equality. It is a pity that most lobby groups fighting for children rights focus on one child, the girl child. It is true that the girl child has been neglected for years and need to be considered, but does that mean we forget the boy child? The reality is that in years to come the boy child will be in the same position the girl child was years back.
In rural areas more and more boys are dropping out of school due to the environment around them. After this no one cares or bothers about them simply because they are "men". The statement "atajipanga si ni mwanaume" (he can sort himself isn't he a man) is now widely misused by the society. This means if a boy has a problem he is simply not man enough.
We basically believe that the boy child is the stronger sex but the opposite is the fact. Realities will only dawn on us if we look at the mortality rate of boys since conception to the age of five. The difference in the ratio at conception and that at adult hood is alarming.
I am in no way suggesting we go back to the old ways of neglecting the girl child so that we "pamper" the boy child. What am simply saying is that we should equally treat both children. Give them equal chances of survival.
In campuses the population of ladies is getting greater than that of men in at a large rate simply because the cutoff points tend to favor them. Statistics show that the number of women students entering Kenyan universities rose at the fastest rate ever – by more than 30% – last year, and for the first time there are more than 100,000 female students in higher education, new government data show. Kenya’s recently released Economic Survey 2013, a document that tracks annual economic data across all sectors, showed that there were some 105,115 female students enrolled in universities in 2012, up from 80,560 the year before. This highlighted a trend over the past five years that has seen female enrolment rise faster than that of males, whose number rose by 15% – half the growth rate of women – from 117,700 in 2011 to 135,436 last year. The high number of female candidates seeking places in universities was replicated in primary schools, where more girls than boys are enrolled. The rate for girls increased by 1.6% from 4.8 million in 2011 to 4.9 million last year, while that of boys grew by just 0.7% from 4.9 million to five million. It is not fair for a lady with 61 points to join campus while a boy with the same potential; with the same points to be locked out just because the cutoff for the boys is at 64 points.
We should not create mechanisms that only favor one side because with time we will have to go back to the drawing board to create a mechanism that will try to reverse what we have done.
Fighting for the rights of girl child is a very noble course but protecting the rights for both children is the best thing we can ever do.
