According to Mathers, after the first year of life boys nationally have a death rate 35 per cent higher than girls. In all areas of health status (death, disability, handicap and illness), boys fare worse than girls (ages 0 - 12 years). Generally, more boys than girls have mental health problems, including conduct disorder, disruptive or antisocial behaviours. Young boys are the predominant reported victims of physical violence, emotional abuse and neglect from adults and carers.
Over 18,000 boys under the age of four are subjected to painful, sometimes dangerous and life altering surgery each year without their consent. All six major medical societies of Australia have declared that circumcision of newborn males should not be routinely performed. The Royal Australasian College of Physicians has expressed concern that neonatal circumcision may violate human rights. In their statement the ACP disclosed the traumatic nature of circumcision, recommending that parents should be given more complete facts about the procedure. Circumcision has serious risks. These include infection, hemorrhage, scarring, shock, penile disfigurement, penile amputation, and even occasional death. The complication rate for this unnecessary procedure is estimated to be 2-10%. Three Australian states and two territories have laws that protect little girls from this sort of procedure but there exists nothing to protect our little boys.
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 The men from Uncle making a difference in boys' lives
A mentoring project for boys with absent fathers is struggling to stay afloat, writes Saffron Howden. When Luke Chamberlain's father died suddenly of a heart attack while surfing near Byron Bay two years ago, the nine-year-old was left with his twin sisters and a loving mother. It wasn't enough. He needed a male guide: someone to take him hiking, camping and surfing; someone to talk about cars, movies, sport and girls.
An uncle was the obvious choice - and Uncle, a unique community group that for nearly 15 years has helped hundreds of boys with absent or fickle fathers find adult male mentors, provided just that. "There's a lot of boys growing up without father figures around; some of them are slack, some of them have left, some have gone off with other women," Uncle's chief executive, Mark Gasson, said. "[Uncle is] never a replacement for a dad, but it's someone in their life that they can call and say, 'I'm having this crisis."
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Special schools a fast track to prison
Boys are being segregated from the mainstream school system for behavioural and emotional disorders at about six times the rate of girls. A study by Macquarie University researchers has found a disturbing pattern suggesting specialist behaviour schools may act as a "school-to-prison pipeline", in which students do not return to mainstream classes but enter juvenile justice centres.
The proportion of boys in special classes rises as diagnosis of their condition becomes more subjective, with boys accounting for 85 per cent of students in special schools with behavioural and emotional disorders. The enrolment pattern for students with behaviour disorders in juvenile justice facilities mirrors the trend in special schools, with enrolments for boys rising steeply from 13 on.
Dr Graham said the similarities of the trend in behaviour disorders and juvenile justice involvement raised the question of whether behaviour schools "precipitate movement down a school-to-prison pipeline. Reports suggest that these kids are being sent into holding pens. They're becoming repositories for kids ... and once they go in, it appears a high proportion are not coming ... out. These are kids who are disengaging because they're not learning at the rate of their peers in the first school years."
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Forty boys killed in botched circumcisions in South Africa
Botched circumcisions in South Africa killed 40 boys and put over 100 in the hospital this month, a health official said. The boys, who were taken into rural areas and circumcised as part of traditional rites of passage, died from gangrene, dehydration and pneumonia, said Sizwe Kupelo, health department spokesman for Eastern Cape province. Mr Kupelo said practitioners of the rite are often not trained to carry out the procedure and can circumcise up to 50 boys with the same knife without sterilising it in between. "In some cases boys were not circumcised but mutilated," he said. "They use herbs to clean, hence this thing becomes gangrenous and infected," he said. Mr Kupelo said that the tradition was being exploited by young men in the eastern region of the province, rather than elders who should carry out the procedure. Boys die every year from botched circumcisions by ill-trained traditional surgeons in rural areas. Last year in the Eastern Cape, 91 boys died from complications of circumcisions, 55 of them in June, when the winter initiation season is at its height.
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 What's happening to our boys?
How the new technologies, drugs and alcohol, peer pressure and porn affect our boys. By Maggie Hamilton
What kind of world are our boys to growing up in? Why are increasing numbers of boys suffering body image and self-esteem problems? Why do they feel worthless without the latest branded toy, game or item of clothing? What makes soft drinks, snacks and fast foods so attractive? Why are they drawn to countless acts of violence on TV, in movies and in computer games? What impact does our highly sexualised climate, our emphasis on success and money, have on them as they grow? And why are so many boys vulnerable to cyber bullying and to porn? Childhood and teenage life is changing rapidly, leaving parents exhausted and confused as to how best to tackle the many issues they face. How does this high pressure environment affect a boy's confidence, his values and aspirations, his wellbeing, his sense of community, his attitudes to girls and women?
In her follow-up book to What's Happening to Our Girls?, bestselling author Maggie Hamilton asks these and many other vital questions, as well as providing numerous tips for parents and educators on how to create a more promising future for our children. She draws upon interviews with over 70 experts including doctors, psychologists, police and teachers, as well as the 50 anonymous boys themselves to see into their secret lives and understand the challenges they face. What's Happening to Our Boys? is a meticulously researched book that confronts the problems boys and young men face, suggesting positive and constructive ways to help them grow into resilient, productive and happy individuals.
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Plastic chemicals 'feminise boys' (US)
Chemicals in plastics alter the brains of baby boys, making them "more feminine", say US researchers. Males exposed to high doses in the womb went on to be less likely to play with boys' toys like cars or to join in rough and tumble games, they found. The University of Rochester team's latest work adds to concerns about the safety of phthalates, found in vinyl flooring and PVC shower curtains. The findings are reported in the International Journal of Andrology. Phthalates have the ability to disrupt hormones, and have been banned in toys in the EU for some years. However, they are still widely used in many different household items, including plastic furniture and packaging. There are many different types and some mimic the female hormone oestrogen. The same researchers have already shown that this can mean boys are born with genital abnormalities. Now they say certain phthalates also impact on the developing brain, by knocking out the action of the male hormone testosterone.
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Music teacher jailed for student sex
A former Ballarat teacher will spend Christmas behind bars for having sex with two students. Michelle Lynn Dennis, 33, had sex with the boys, aged 14 and 17, while employed as a music teacher at Ballarat High School. The County Court at Ballarat heard that Dennis sent more than 1300 text messages to the students over a two-year period. She also sent one of the boys naked pictures of herself and invited one of his friends to have a threesome with them. Dennis pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual penetration of a child under supervision and one count of sexual penetration of a child under 16. She was convicted and sentenced to four years and three months' jail, with a minimum of two years and 10 months to serve.
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Common chemicals kill masculinity
A US study has come to the conclusion that the chemicals that make your flooring and your furniture soft may also be making a new generation of soft blokes. Phthalates are used not only in household items, they're also present in processed food and now there's evidence that boys who were exposed to high levels of the chemicals in utero are less masculine. It's a finding which has implications not only for pregnant women but for society at large, as Simon Lauder reports.
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