A BOY AND A GIRL

It seems that hardly a day goes by without some story of sexual abuse or molestation hitting the press. The latest concerns an allegation that a teacher at a secondary school in Guyana arranged with a student of his school to meet him at a certain place.
We have so far only heard one part of the story and I hope that the press tries to secure a comment from the accused and from persons not connected with the accuser, since very often in these kinds of matters emotions run high and the accused comes under the brunt of public condemnation without being afforded the opportunity to have his side of the story heard.
The Kaieteur News report was certainly vivid and provided a great many details. One of those details was about the alleged accused himself accusing the accuser of having a “man”. This is certainly an aspect which the police would wish to investigate since the laws of Guyana have been amended and any person having sexual relations with someone under the statutory age would be guilty of statutory rape, regardless of whether consent was granted or not.
This issue of course raises other related concerns. The first of these concerns boyfriend/ girlfriend relationships between children attending school. Traditionally, these things were prohibited and many a girl or a boy was uncomfortable with having a relationship while at school.
It is not that there was not a great deal of infatuation taking place. Boys in school would always have eyes for girls and vice versa. There was always that interest, but it hardly ever went anywhere, because there is no way that a schoolgirl could be seen having anything other than an innocent conversation with a boy.
And in those days, many girls were afraid to be seen talking to a boy in public, even if that boy was in her classroom.
This did have its drawbacks. Both young men and women hardly developed the social skills necessary to mix freely and openly with the opposite sex and even today you do notice girls assembling together by themselves and boys doing the same.
One of the arguments used to support the introduction of co-education was this schism that had developed between boys and girls with both being unable, in many instances, to relate to one another. Especially as young people approach puberty, building friendships with the opposite sex becomes problematic because anytime a boy is seen talking to a girl for an extended period, either party is accused of having an interest in the other.
The same thing happens in school when teachers show an interest in their pupils. A male teacher may simply be chatting with a female student and the next thing you know there is gossip around about who likes who.
There are, of course, a number of male teachers who indeed have an unhealthy interest in their pupils and this should be discouraged, despite teachers being known to marry their students.
Particularly in secondary school, there is a need for some programme to be initiated that would allow cross-gender friendships to develop without it going past the platonic stage. Boys and girls can be friends and should be friends without it leading to a relationship of the heart or the flesh.
Today with almost every student having access to a phone, it means that students can communicate with each other without either their parents or teachers knowing. And this therefore presents a challenge to both educationists and parents to try to encourage healthy relationships between boys and girls.
Adolescence is a very difficult period for young people, and especially given the taboos that we have inherited about boys speaking to girls. What is necessary is for young people to be taught the importance of cultivating friendships with members of the other sex rather than seeking lovers.
And I am afraid that too many of our young men after they have reached a certain age, do not know how to have a conversation with a young lady, unless they are trying to get close to that person. And too many young women reject being friends with young men because they assume that the only relationship they are allowed to have with the opposite sex are those that lead to love and marriage.
Many parents, of course, have not come from a tradition in which boys were kept apart from girls after the girls reached puberty. And therefore parents themselves are struggling to find ways of encouraging their children to have friends of the opposite sex, mindful of the risks involved in these type of interactions.
It is not easy, and social organisations must come to the rescue of parents who are encouraging healthy interaction between the sexes. If this does not happen, then the classroom may not be the only place where parents would have to be concerned about their daughters.