Violence Against Women
Global efforts to attain gender equality and empower women seem to be failing, with a new study indicating that more people in developing countries approve the beating of women.
This year's Because I Am A Girl report launched in the city yesterday by Plan International revealed that 65 per cent of participants from Rwanda and India agreed that a woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family intact.
With the theme What About Boys?, the report further found out that another 43 per cent agreed with the statement that there were times when a woman deserved to be beaten.
The revelations do not sit well with the Millennium Development Goal number three which pledges to promote gender equality and empower women by the year 2015.The report blamed the social pressure placed on men and boys to be "Real men": Tough, providers, aggressive; while women and girls were "Real women": caring, humble and submissive for fuelling stereotypes in both developed and developing countries.
According to the report said: "Paradoxically, boys are on the losing end as they drop out of school at a faster rate than girls while also doing less well academically. For example, in the US, the average grade-point in high schools is 3.09 for girls and 2.86 for boys."
The findings also indicated that young men aged between 15 and 19 who adhered to traditional views of manhood in the US were more likely to engage in substance abuse, violence, delinquency and unsafe sexual practices.Moreover, arrogance overshadowed wisdom among men and boys as 60 per cent of those aged between 15 and 24 did not have accurate and comprehensive information on HIV and how to avoid transmission.
The result also indicated that, thanks to the way they were socialized to be men, young men had the highest death rates through traffic accidents, suicide and violence in Jamaica, Brazil, Colombia and parts of Sub Sahara Africa. Deaths from such causes were higher than in countries at war, according to the report.
In his speech, the Plan International Tanzania Country director, Mr David Muthungu, said this year's theme focused on the role of boys out of necessity.
"It has become increasingly clear that unless young men and boys work alongside girls and young women, it will be difficult to break the cycle of poverty which is handed down to generations from parent to child" he said.
Mr Muthungu said men's involvement in raising of children did not only benefit the child but the parent too.
n that men who are positively engaged in the lives of their children or step children are less likely to be depressed, to commit suicide or to be violent. Instead, they are more likely to be involved in community work, supportive of their partners and to be involved in school activities," he said.
In her speech, the guest of honour, the minister for Community Development, Gender and Children, Ms Sophia Simba, said the government had put in place The Child Development Policy of 2008 and the Children Act of 2009 in an effort to improve the welfare of Tanzania's children, regardless of sex.
She added that the latter was to be translated into Kiswahili for the benefit of the beneficiaries- children and the majority of parents who were less conversant with English, the language in which the Act was written.
