Posted On: 2021-12-24 14:22:49
India’s development over the last two decades has contributed exceptionally to global human development. Extreme poverty in India declined to 21 per cent, infant mortality has more than halved, some 80 per cent of women now deliver in a health installation and two million fewer children are out-of-school. Even now, in this modern age where many are “modernized” and “educated”, there are families who still prefer a boy child so that he can become the pillar and can support the family in future. These young lads are loaded up from a young age with responsibilities and are reminded on a very often basis to not act like a girl or be weak/ cry like a girl. These comparisons created many challenges for young boys. Recent headlines have asserted that there are problems with boys, a boys crisis, and a new gender gap between boys and girls. But not everyone agrees. For some boys, the transition to adulthood is more difficult. Every child, regardless of age or sex needs a loving family, a safe environment, opportunities, and a right to live life as desired. The childhood of every child is innocent. Boys can cry too.
Young boys tend to compare themselves with their buddies and peers. Am I too skinny? Am I too fat? Why is my hair so curly? Will girls like me? Why can’t I grow a beard? How will I do this? Can I ask for help? These kinds of thoughts swallow their mind and this comparison may result in low self-esteem. They may lose confidence and fall prey to the inferiority complex. Well, it’s cliche! but it is a fact. Parents expect boys to thrive in life, have a good career, earn money and take care of the family in the future. They are expected to earn good money, buy a big house, car, or else they are considered losers or no one will marry them. These anticipations may restrict their aspirations. Burdening the young shoulders with responsibilities may deform their future.
In India, the number of incidents of sexual assaults, eve-teasing, and harassment are rising which has become a major problem for girls and women. But unfortunately, nowadays, the laws which were created to protect the dignity of women are being misused by women only. Because of these continued events, boys are now always looked at as sex offenders and perverts. They are now afraid to offer a seat to any woman because offering a seat to a lady might be taken as a wrong intention and somehow he'll be blamed for something. Indian society always blames boys by default in any such cases.
Boys are mercilessly beaten up by the public, even the police and society judge them without even listening to their side of the story. We strongly support the strict laws for women security & safety. And these laws should get enforced for the men too. A 2019 survey by LeanIn.Org and SurveyMonkey found that 60% of male managers in the USA and 40% in the UK said they were uncomfortable working with women, including mentoring, working one-on-one or socialising.
#Metoo Movement
In October 2018, the global #MeToo movement against sexual abuse and harassment executed by powerful men and women in society reached India's mainstream public discourse. Many women and men came out with allegations and accounts of harassment on social media and different platforms. But most of these allegations were against powerful men. Like in other places across the world, the #MeToo movement caused controversy in India about sexual harassment within the workplace, specifically in the entertainment, film industries and huge named firms. While India's #MeToo movement seems to have achieved little measurable success, the movement has made it easier for the victim to speak up against sexual harassment in the workplace.
#HimToo movement
This movement supported male victims of sexual assault and against false rape allegations. This reaction to the MeToo movement started in October 2018 after a tweet from a mother about her son being afraid to date because of a climate of false rape allegations. The #HimToo movement is seen as a response to the sexual assault allegations from the #MeToo movement.
Criticizers also claim that the HimToo movement demoralises men who do deal with sexual abuse from coming forward because HimToo creates a gender line where men are the accused and women make the accusations.
But in reality, false allegations are rare but this fact does not eliminate there is zero false allegation.
In this modern world, youngsters with depression are called “Time Bombs”, the whole depression thing bursts when they cannot tolerate it anymore and do something outrageous as killing people or even their own families or they harm themselves. Yes, these are real stories. At one point teenagers cannot control depression and boys are not an exception to that. Their parents never ask them about their concerns because of the stigma that boys are supposed to be strong. Parents don’t try to comprehend boys and acknowledge their problems.
They cannot talk about their feelings openly. If they do, they get chuckled at. Boys are always expected to be physically and emotionally strong. There’s a constant pressure of fulfilling the responsibilities. They fear to do and talk to a therapist as this may destroy their image. All these factors can end up in depression. And this depression, unfortunately sometimes results in self-harm or suicide. That’s why there are more male suicides than females.
More than 1 million children, according to the International Labour Organization, are influenced each year in the commercial sex trade. As per the US Today, a child, Jones was raped, abused and sold to men for sex. The brutality ended when he was 15. But, like many male victims, Jones didn’t seek help, didn’t tell anyone about the trauma he had suffered. The perception of what trafficking victims look like can often hop to our mind as young, foreign, female. She does exist, and there are many victims of trafficking like her, but she is not the only one. Men and boys can be trafficked, too. Human trafficking affects all countries and genders. Most often, we associate men and boys being trafficked into hard labour and women and girls trafficked into the sex trade, but young boys are also trafficked into the sex trade. In 2020, boys made up 7% of child sex trafficking victims reported to NCMEC. Also, 78% of reports regarding online enticement involved girls, and 15% involved boys (in 8% of reports, the gender of the child could not be determined).
The stigma, all boys and men should be strong enough to fight off traffickers and thus they cannot be victims. This also inhibits these men and boys from talking up when exploitation does happen. They face a strong taboo of men having sex with another man, even in cases of force and rape. Sometimes people associate males selling sex with being gay instead of being trafficked. They are always assumed to be strong and emotionless when considered to all these events.
Anyone can be trafficked, regardless of gender. No one’s sexual abuse and exploitation should be ignored or treated as a fantasy. It’s time Human trafficking should be stopped.
As per UNICEF, a total of 152 million children – 64 million girls and 88 million boys – are assessed to be in child labour globally, accounting for almost one in ten of all children worldwide. Child labourers can be found in different industries like brick kilns, carpet weaving, garment making, domestic service, agriculture, fisheries, and mining. Youngsters are also at risk for various other forms of exploitation including sexual exploitation that involves the internet such as child sexual abuse materials; online facilitation of offline child sexual exploitation; involving adults or other children exposing children to pornography, working as servants, working in chemical factories. Children from lower caste or marginalized ethnic groups could be more targeted for child labour abuse. As per UNICEF, the number of children in child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide – an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years – with millions more at risk due to the impacts of COVID-19, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF. The report warns that globally, 9 million additional children are at risk of being pushed into child labour by the end of 2022 as a result of the pandemic. A simulation model shows this number could rise to 46 million if they don’t have access to critical social protection coverage.
The boy working at a chai (tea) shop near your office, or serving you at an eatery or working at a construction site could be anyone with a different name. These young boys who are child labourers have no way out of their predicament through either earnings or education. They don’t have a normal childhood. A maximum number of children who are forced into child labour are boys.
This is a big problem. Not all, but a lot of young boys are doing drugs and are drinking for the sake of boasting in the friend circle and by falling prey to peer pressure. While some tend to start these habits dues to stress and fear, they simply don’t know how to avoid all these habits and have no idea how it’s going to affect them in the future. Tobacco, Narcotics and alcohol are widely consumed by teenagers especially young boys.
Every child, boys or girls, need proper care, education and love from a young age so that they are shaped as a better person. Every single person can fall prey to all the mentioned events affecting a HUMAN BEING and should be stoped. The Stigma around men should be discussed along with all the other problems. And we should empower men too as they are also the pillars of our society standing beside women.
Author : Lubdha Dhanopia
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