Before Violence Becomes a Headline: Why We Need to Listen to Boys Earlier?
My personal reflections on recent incidents of violence involving children, the questions we aren't asking, and why AWARE India Trust is investing in research, positive masculinity and early intervention through Echoes of Tomorrow.
Some news stories stay with you long after you've finished reading them.
Over the past few days, two incidents involving children have left me deeply disturbed and thinking about the work we do with boys and young men.
The first was from Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, where a 21-year-old man allegedly entered a school and attacked a Class 10 girl with a chainsaw. Another girl who tried to intervene was also injured. Reports suggest that the attack may have followed the girl's rejection of his advances, although the motive remains under investigation.
I keep thinking about the girl, her friend, their families and the fear such violence creates in a place where children should feel safe.
And I keep coming back to one question.
How does someone's inability to accept a 'no' reach a point where another person's life becomes expendable?
We speak to children about education, careers, discipline and success. But are we giving equal attention to how they understand rejection, boundaries, anger, relationships and respect?
I don't think these are conversations we can afford to postpone until adulthood.
The second incident was from Panchkula, Haryana, where an eight-year-old boy seriously assaulted a six-year-old girl inside a school classroom.
Eight years old.
I find it difficult to process that a child so young could inflict such harm on another child. I also wonder what experiences, emotions or influences might have contributed to his behaviour. We don't yet have enough evidence to answer that question.
The girl deserves safety, care and justice. The boy, too, is a child who needs proper assessment, intervention and rehabilitation. And the school has serious questions to answer about how this could happen without timely intervention.
These two incidents are very different. I don't want to draw easy conclusions or suggest that they have the same causes.
But they have made me reflect more deeply on something I have been working towards for some time.
Are we doing enough with boys before harmful behaviours become serious problems?
At AWARE India Trust, our work through unMASC, the School Positive Masculinity Program and better[MEN]t Experiential Camps has been an attempt to engage boys and men in conversations that often don't find space in their everyday lives.
About anger, rejection, peer pressure, emotional expression, consent, respect, relationships and the pressures of being seen as masculine.
And I increasingly feel that we need to listen more carefully, not just deliver sessions and assume we understand what boys are going through.
That is also why we have been working on our research on Violence Exposure & Substance Usage among Adolescent Boys in Tamil Nadu.
We want to understand what professionals working with boys are observing, what support is missing and how our programmes can respond better.
These thoughts are shaping Echoes of Tomorrow: Shielding Adolescent Boys from Violence, Substance and Addiction, which we are organising with the Department of Social Work, The American College, Madurai, on 18 November 2026, ahead of International Men's Day.
We are bringing together research, student perspectives, panel discussions and an art exhibition to explore some of these difficult questions.
I don't expect one event or one research report to provide all the answers.
But I hope it helps us ask better questions, listen to people working closely with children and think more carefully about what prevention should look like.
We need to protect girls from violence. We also need to engage boys early, before harmful attitudes and behaviours become deeply rooted.
These two responsibilities must go together.
I don't want our work with boys to begin only when something terrible happens.
I want us to reach them much earlier.
#EchoesOfTomorrow #unMASC #betterMENt #PositiveMasculinity #ChildSafeguarding #ViolencePrevention #AdolescentBoys #AWAREIndiaTrust
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