Boy Child Day to be launched

Men must take blame for women’s woes, says actor

Uzalo actor Msizi Masoja believes men need to take the blame for the bad behaviour of young boys and violence against women.

Masoja, who will be one of the motivational speakers at this weekend’s inaugural Boy Child Day, said it was time for men to go back to their roots where their forefathers were respected through their actions.

“We’ve lost our values as men in SA. We keep pointing fingers at young boys for misbehaving and mistreating women instead of pointing at ourselves for failing them. They learn these things from us,” said Masoja, who plays Nkunzi on Uzalo.

Masoja and former Kaizer Chiefs midfielder Siyabonga Nkosi will be headlining speakers at the Boy Child Day at the Daveyton Youth Centre in Ekurhuleni tomorrow. The event is organised by the Community Development Foundation of SA (Codefsa) with the aim to honour and mentor boys and young men between the ages of 10 to 24 years old. The event is also launched to debate the current violent onslaught against women in the country.

Codefsa director Nkululeko Nxesi said the aim was to give attention to boys because they were often neglected by empowerment programmes. “We’ve realised that a number of interventions on crime and violence against women were mainly focusing on grown men, women and young girls and nothing is said about a boy child. Because of this, some of them end up perpetuating the stereotype that men are abusers.”