Project Boys Talk About It (BTAI)
Project Boys Talk About It is a male sexual abuse awareness initiative and the flagship project for Boys Without Borders Nigeria. Kick-started in October 2020, this project stemmed from a need to create awareness about male sexual abuse.
In today’s society, male sexual abuse is a discourse that is hardly spoken about, with some having little to no awareness of it at all, and this is geared towards changing that narrative.
We started this project a few months into our existence as an organization, and we have run it through four campaigns, getting about 50 stories in the process, reaching over 17, 000 readers, and more importantly, getting over 200, 000 content reach across social media platforms through multi-format content geared towards dispelling myths about male sexual abuse.
Our work with Project Boys Talk About It has been featured by DW Africa and Prime Progress NG.
Project Boys Talk About It started off in October 2020 as one of our earliest initiatives at Boys Without Borders.
Armed with the agenda of creating awareness about the realities of male sexual abuse and dispelling myths about what constitutes abuse, we launched BTAI, getting 12 responses in the first year.
Riding on the success and impact reach of the first Project Boys Talk About It, we launched BTAI 2.0 in 2021, collating stories of male sexual abuse.
Project BTAI 2.0 saw us collate five stories of male sexual abuse, in the face of doubts from people claiming the collated stories were fabricated. However, day in, day out, we read stories in the news corroborating the abuse young boys face from older men and women.
Unashamed /ʌnəˈʃeɪmd/
expressed or acting openly and without guilt or embarrassment
Shame is one common emotion easily attributed to sexual abuse victims. It’s worse if the victims are males. Over the years, societal conditioning hasn’t helped the boy-child in showing emotions, that of shame especially. Why should male victims of sexual abuse be subjected to shame when they never had control over their sad reality?
At Boys Without Borders, we stand unashamed with all victims of male sexual abuse, as we provide a platform for them to share their stories and receive the help they require.
#BeTheVoice: Awareness to Inspire Action
There are several misconceptions about male sexual abuse, the biggest of them being that it’s nothing but a myth.
In the past, we’ve had people tell us that members of our organization sat down to create fictitious stories being shared during BTAI campaigns.
Sexual abuse — in all its bold and subtle forms — is one of the most life-altering things. Women experience it; men experience it too.
If there’s any lesson we’ve learned from campaigns against raping women, it’s that awareness does a lot of good. We’re not where we want to be yet, but we’ve made significant progress because more and more people are getting to know that women get sexually abused.
Sadly, factors such as shame, societal perceptions of the “Alpha” male, erroneous concepts, and suppression have been militating against awareness about male sexual abuse.
Awareness is important in the battle against this abuse — parents need to be aware and wary of groomers; young boys need to be aware; society needs this awareness!
