Focus on the boys

Women’s Month reminds me of a lament of our former sports editor: when will there be a Men’s Month, and a Men’s Day?

The answer is that the 11 months of the year are men’s months. And of course he knows that men did not have to struggle for empowerment the way women did.

Even with the Philippines consistently ranking high in the annual Global Gender Gap report drawn up by the World Economic Forum, many challenges remain, according to the Philippine Commission on Women. In the 2020 Gender Gap report, the Philippines has fallen to 16th place from its usual spot among the top 10.

Still, with our former sports editor’s sentiment in mind, I am focusing on an issue affecting boys that child welfare advocates say is a problem that has been ignored.

This is the sexual molestation and violence suffered by Filipino males 13 to 24 years old, under circumstances that the predator – mainly older men – might legally argue as consensual. And these are not confined to encounters with pedophiles and predatory gays.

In certain cases, the acts become the boys’ initiation into sex – but without the fear of getting a girl pregnant or being held accountable for the loss of her virginity. And if an adult male heterosexual is the seducer who says this is a rite of passage to manhood and it’s OK, there are boys who are open to experimentation.

Child welfare advocates say this kind of sexual initiation and experimentation can be traumatic for boys. And they can’t get help because they are told that such acts aren’t entirely an aberration. Plus they are boys, and they can deal with it.

There are also boys who engage in various forms of sexual activities with older men for a fee – and feel they are doing nothing wrong. When such sexual encounters are seen as livelihood, the boys may even feel that they are helping their families. Or else they get personal gratification from financial empowerment, regardless of the source of the earnings.

Even with the personal gratification, however, the boys are still conflicted, asking themselves if what they are doing is wrong, or why they accept money for it. Some admit enjoying the sexual acts and wonder why.

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These are some of the findings in a study on the sexual abuse of boys, which was conducted by the Quezon City-based Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse (CPTCSA), in collaboration with the London-based international civil society alliance Family for Every Child.

Zenaida Rosales, executive director of the CPTCSA, told “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News that one of the biggest challenges in confronting the problem and assisting abused boys is the cultural stereotyping of gender roles. There is a “toxic masculinity framework” that propagates the abuse, Rosales lamented.

Appearing with Rosales on our show was lawyer Cristina Sevilla, executive director of Action Against Violence and Exploitation or Active, who lamented the archaic laws that emboldened men to prey on young boys.

A number of these laws have been amended. Rape, which can land an offender in prison for life, now covers both male and female. There are more laws protecting children from violence and sexual exploitation.

Still, Sevilla says more laws need to be amended to specifically protect boys from sexual assault.

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In February 2017, representatives of Family for Every Child member organizations in the Philippines, Cambodia, Nepal, India and Indonesia gathered in the Philippines to discuss ways of confronting the problem.

The following year, Family for Every Child conducted a global scoping study on caring for boys affected by sexual violence.

Members of the NGO’s local affiliates in the Philippines, Cambodia, India and Nepal began collecting data on child sexual abuse, with a focus on boys. In the Philippines, about 100 respondents were selected – not randomly – for a qualitative survey co-funded by the World Childhood Foundation.

Rosales’ CPTCSA wanted to get 20 representatives each for five target populations: parents, young men, victims, actors or predators, and service providers. The 20, however, was not completed particularly for the victims. Rosales cited the difficulty of finding boys willing to discuss their ordeal.

The results were released in 2018, but Rosales and Sevilla lament that action has been slow.  

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As early as 1996, a global report on violence and health published by the World Health Organization noted that sexual violence against men and boys was a significant problem that had been neglected in research.

Data collected by the child protection unit of the Philippine General Hospital together with the Department of Health in 2000 showed that more boys than girls in the country suffered forced sex.

The CPTCSA in 2012 also gathered data showing that boys were more likely than girls to experience sexual assault by a peer or a known adult, sexual exposure, pornography, physical abuse by a caregiver, neglect and bullying.

Rosales noted that the most recent national baseline study in the country on violence against children, conducted in 2016, further validated the data that boys are more at risk of physical and sexual abuse than girls.

The boys can be scarred for life – especially if they can’t find someone to turn to for help.

So parents, watch your boys. Their seemingly innocuous escapades could be more than just boys being boys.

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VIP SECURITY: At 1 p.m. along President Avenue in Parañaque yesterday, two motorcycle cops, their blinkers on, escorted a black Audi (license plate NBT 5941) into Tahanan Village. For sure, the VIP wasn’t any of the five top officials of the land in the line of succession entitled to two or more police security escorts.

The country has thousands of mayors, vice mayors, governors and vice governors, in addition to the hundreds of congressmen, senators, Cabinet members and other public officials. How many of the 191,000 Philippine National Police personnel are assigned as VIP security, at taxpayers’ expense? How many are left to keep us lesser mortals safe?