Africa-Press – Mauritius. Male abuse is a topic not many speak about. Maybe out of shame, tradition, culture or how the sexes have been conditioned to discuss certain matters in society.
Don’t get me wrong, woman and girl abuse is a scourge on our society, but just because something isn’t spoken about does not mean it isn’t happening. We see in secret and dark corners, men suffering the effects of abuse, be it physical, financial, emotional and sexual.
But boy children are been abused sexually by their caregivers, family and teachers. An unspoken truth is that male and female caregivers take advantage of young boys to satisfy their sexual needs.
We have all heard about this happening at traditional circumcision schools and because of the unspoken, unwritten rule that “What happens on the mountain remains on the mountain”, much goes unsaid and boy children grow up traumatized throughout their maturing years and say nothing about the abuse they suffered at the hands of the elders they were supposed to trust. Caregivers inflict the worst pain and betray the trust put upon them by parents and society to take care of boy children.
If a house-helper, a teacher, a coach or a family elder or uncle abuses that trust and molests an innocent he was supposed to protect, how is he to have a normal life going forward in his life? How is he to be a functional member in society? How is he to interpret his relationships with the world? Is it a surprise that some men have such dysfunctional relationships with the women in their lives?
Is masculine toxicity not a result or symptom of such abuse? The adage then is true: The abused becomes the abuser.
In addressing GBV, are we dealing only with the symptom and not the root cause of this malaise? Is it enough to try to accept the simplistic reason and obvious results of GBV across all genders, than take a deeper, more complicated and uncomfortable truth of what makes an abuser?
Teachers are also the worst of abusers.
Not only do they impregnate their girl charges, but they also molest the boy child too. Female teachers having sexual relations with young boys is a sin.
Male teachers molesting boys is evil. Taking advantage of a young mind and vulnerable soul is a betrayal of the highest order. School is a place where children go to learn to be meaningful and productive members of society.
Taking advantage of that because of your position of superiority in the hierarchy or position of power is a crime that should be punished with the sternest of sentences.
Family, whether parents, siblings, uncles and aunts are another group of perpetrators. Step-parents have been known to be some of the worst in this field.
Step-fathers have been known to impregnate their wives’ daughters. They have also been known to molest and rape the young boy children of their spouses.
This is a sick and evil power play. Most times the children won’t say anything to their parent out of fear of being seen as trying to spoil their parents’ relationships.
It is worse if the abuser is the main breadwinner and blackmails the child that if they speak, they and the rest of the family will be on the street as all benefits will be withdrawn.
Worse if they are threatened with death, either on themselves or the parent. Uncles and other family members have also been known to be big abusers of boy children, physically, emotionally or sexually. Siblings can also be huge abusers in the emotional and physical space, especially when there may not be much adult oversight.
Depending on the age of the siblings and the involvement of adults in the family, the maturity and age differences, all these may be contributing factors in this age of child-headed households, care and serious contemplation needs to be considered when debating this issue.
Culture and tradition most times want things to be solved “In-House” to avoid embarrassment and shame. Some families and cultures are okay to accept a gift in the form of a cow or cash to keep the sin of rape silent within the family.
The perpetrator gets away scot free with this token of an admission of guilt and no apology. The victim is to never discuss their ordeal with no counseling and acknowledgement of what happened to them.
The victim is just expected to move forward thinking that it may have been their fault and the violation on them is less important than the crime perpetrated towards them.
They are meant to believe that family is more important and silence is golden. They are taught to believe that family pride is more import than their feelings of hurt, betrayal and trauma.
Paying off a crime and not reporting it to police is a crime in itself. Culture and tradition are not static, they evolve with time and circumstance, place and moment.
They need to be current to today’s needs yet not ever forgetting the lessons of yesteryear. History is our teacher. We can only have a meaningful tomorrow by keeping yesterday in mind.
The greatest lesson of this life is remembering the fall of great empires. The greatest being the fall of the Mayan empire. This great empire fell because of its conspicuous consumption. All great empires fell because they believed they were too big to fall.
Bringing it back home, many families break and fall because they never expose their rot and compromise their children’s pain and shame, only for it to visit them years later as the abused becomes the abuser and starts committing crimes too shameful to mention.
So let us not be fooled. What you sow yee shall reap. GBV should never be gendered. Male abuse is real. GBV has no gender. It is our unspoken pandemic.
We need to take care of our boy children. We need to protect them from our own families, caregivers, uncles and teachers and our friends and their own siblings.
Let’s protect our boys and fellow men. Sometimes abusive men are acting out the abuse that was perpetrated upon them. This is not an excuse, but hurt people hurt people.
Let’s look at the root causes. Solving and healing symptoms never solves the root cause of the problem. Let’s be strong enough and bold enough to address the problems we have in society.
No matter how difficult or painful or uncomfortable it might be. Many men are broken. And broken people break innocent people. As we move forward in life, let’s be mindful of all that is happening around us.
No matter how uncomfortable it may be. We know the abusers, they are our uncles, friends and our children’s teachers and priests. They are often the most trusted people in society that have been given the responsibility to protect our boys.
Our children are products of what we make of them. They are formed and fashioned on their upbringing, their experiences and learnings are the basic knowledge that they live by.
And if abuse, molestation and emotional emptiness are what they learn and experience, then we have a very bleak future to look forward to as our sons are our future.
My take on all of this is to be honest. Let us support and help the broken, the hurt and the abused and broken. Let’s never judge the young boys. They never brought it upon themselves.
How do you still listen to a priest who abuses children? They are supposed to be men of God. Is the abuse they inflict on our children ever justified? Let’s start asking questions and interrogating what other older men and women in positions of power inflict on our young men.
Let’s ask ourselves why we are so silent to this abuse. It’s an unspeakable pandemic. Men need the emotional and intellectual support to deal with this. Boys should never ever feel alone and abandoned when others take advantage of them.
Intellectual gymnastics is what makes the world go around, we may not always be right, but if we ask the right questions, we may get to a world that is harmonious.
All I do in my writings is to ask the questions, engage in meaningful intellectual discussions and leave all outcomes to a present narrative. Be well and be blessed. I hope this article has made you consider the content seriously. We need to protect our boy children.
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