Championing the Kings Club Initiative for Boys
Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi
An increasing rate of the population of young people globally to be in developing countries indicates that the burden of National development in developing countries is increasingly becoming a huge responsibility for the young people. This increasing population is also not void of challenges.
Violence and crime are major features in the discus of this becoming category that often undermine their potentials and rights consequentially creating significant social and economic costs to societies. Nevertheless, young people are a valuable asset to their countries and investing in them brings tremendous social and economic benefits.
Many young people approach adulthood faced with conflicting and confusing messages about sexuality and gender. This is often exacerbated by embarrassment, silence, and disapproval of open discussion of sexual matters by adults, including parents and teachers, at the very time when it is most needed.
Few young people receive adequate preparation for their sexual lives. This leaves them vulnerable to coercion, abuse and exploitation, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.
Globally, reproductive health issues of girls and women and gender-based violence directed at them have received more attention than those of boys and men; but not without good reasons. Men and women are indispensable partners in sexual relationships, marriage and family building. Still, the sexual and reproductive health needs of men beyond their roles as women’s partners have received little attention.
In 2016, DSVRT conducted a research on incarcerated, male sex offenders in Lagos State, Nigeria to provide a plausible means of unraveling the tactics used by sex offenders through profiling. It was however deduced that 89 of the male sex offenders which amounts to 80.9 per cent of the study participants had been sexually abused as a child implying that they had become sexually active at an early age.
This illustrates the trend of “The abused-abuser”.
Some inmates lost their virginity to family members and older acquaintances who took advantage of them during their early teenage years (DSVRT, 2016). Rates of physical violence by male intimate partners against young women are also high.
In multi-country studies, nearly 20 people cent of women say their first sexual experience was forced. United Nations estimates show that globally 30 per cent of women suffer physical violence at least once from a male partner. Moreover, rates of current physical violence are higher in the 15–19 year age group, compared with older women ages 20–49 years old. Although the global community has focused greater attention on GBV in recent years, levels of violence against women remain unchanged (UN General Assembly, 2006).
Recent statistics reveal that in Nigeria today, one in eight boys would have experienced at least one violent encounter before the age of 18 and 61 per cent of the affected boys do not know where to seek services, similarly, majority of Sexual and Gender Based Violence crimes are perpetrated by boys who grow up to be men.
Intervention and Outcome
In light of this, the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team as part of its work plan for 2018, embarked on a timely intervention titled “The Kings Club… Promoting Positive Masculinity” to engage secondary school boys on Sexual and Gender Based Violence, and began to change their mindset and ultimately promote positive masculinity.
The ultimate objective of The Kings Club project is to create a sustainable social structure in educational institutions that will help debunk socio-cultural misconceptions and promote positive masculinity and bring about behavioral and attitudinal change in the minds of young boys in Lagos State.
To this end we sought to constitute an alliance of trained young boys in schools who would serve as peer educators and advocates of positive masculinity by partnering with the Ministry of Education to roll out programs, in all Educational Districts of which the pilot project was implemented in District 6.
Below are outcomes following the implementation of the pilot phase in District 6.
1. Although it initially set out to train 60 boys, a total number of 40 boys from four secondary schools in District 6 where trained, certified and inducted into The Kings Club, Lagos.
2. These groups of boys are currently serving as pioneer members of the club in their respective schools, recording substantial amount of new members in series of meetings held in the term.
3. Positive feedbacks from school teachers and counselors about the attitudinal and behavioral changes noticed amongst the trained boys in their various schools.
4. The project took a step further amidst limited resources to train, certify and induct a total number of 22 Teachers and Counselors in District 6, who are currently patrons in their various schools.
5. The Kings club has been inaugurated and is operative in 15 secondary schools in Lagos state, recording an average of 20 members in each unit, and exceptionally between 40-60 participating secondary school boys at one meeting in several units. This makes it cumulatively 300 club members on an average in District 6.
Going Forward
However, we don’t intend to stop here as the greater chunk of the work lies ahead. We hope to cascade to all other secondary schools in District 6 and all other Educational Districts in Lagos state.
By the end of the 2019, it is expected that the Kings Club is inaugurated in not less than 100 secondary schools in District 6, and the second phase of the project has started in other districts. Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi is the Coordinator of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT), and a Merchant of Hope.