2023-12-07 18:43:41
On the occasion of the 16 days of activism to combat gender-based violence (GBV), the Burkinabè Association for Family Welfare (ABBEF), in collaboration with Carrefour International, organized a day of sharing experiences on positive masculinity, this Thursday, December 7, 2023, in Ouagadougou, around the theme “Investing to prevent violence against women and girls”.
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Two communications mainly punctuated this day of sharing experiences on positive masculinity, initiated by the Burkinabè Association for Family Well-being (ABBEF). The first communication was made by Di Temilé Zoundi, Early Childhood Inspector serving at the Directorate for the Promotion of Inclusive Education, Girls’ Education and Gender at the Ministry of National Education, literacy and promotion of national languages (MENAPLN).
Di Temilé Zoundi, Early Childhood Inspector
He defined positive masculinity in schools as “the commitment of men and women for a positive transformation of the school environment where boys and men consider girls and women as equal partners and where they also support the teaching and learning of girls ».
His presentation also consisted of establishing an inventory of pregnancies, child marriages, gender-based violence, STIs/HIV in schools. He thus noted, from 2019 to 2020, with regard to pregnancies, 454 cases at the national level for primary schools.
“And when we move on to secondary school, we see that the peak was at the 3rd grade level where we really had a high number of pregnancies which rose to almost 2,000. This figure was followed by the 4th grade where we also had just over 1,500 cases; and then we had Tle, almost 1,000 cases”, he recalled the statistics for the other levels. For him, these different figures give food for thought and invite us to find solutions to reduce this phenomenon of unwanted pregnancy.
A view of the support
Regarding child marriages, he reports 161 cases at primary level compared to 254 at post primary and secondary level. With the phenomenon having a hard time, after so much effort to reduce the number of cases, the Early Childhood Inspector thinks that positive masculinity could also be a lever to help reduce cases.
Regarding gender violence, “we realize that physical violence is more observed among girls and among boys, it is emotional violence… sexual violence, it is women who are more indexed with a rate of 5.7% for girls compared to 0.8% for boys,”he indicated.
The factors being multiple according to him, one of the reasons may be ignorance. It is in this sense that he welcomed this day whose objective is, among other things, the access of adolescents and young people to information and quality service provision.
Issaka Sourwema, former Minister of Religious and Customary Affairs
The second communication was made by Issaka Sourwema, former Minister of Religious and Customary Affairs. For him, it was about highlighting the link between positive masculinity and cultural values.
“Traditional values that celebrate courage, honesty, integrity, tolerance, generosity, etc. are values that go in the direction of positive masculinity”, did he declare. And to take tolerance as an example. “If you are tolerant in your family, you create the conditions for people to flourish psychologically”he explained.
Also Serge Pacome ZONGO
Burkina 24
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