Knowledge and Perception on Sexual Abuse Amongst Female Secondary School Students in Abia State Nigeria

Abstract

Knowledge and perception on child sexual abuse has been poorly determined in developing countries. Female children are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse due to ignorance of behaviours that are known to be abusive. The study was conducted to access the knowledge and perception on sexual abuse among female secondary school students in Abia State, Nigeria to raise awareness.The study employed a cross sectional design where 350 students between the ages of 13-17 years from six secondary schools were interviewed using a validated semi – structured questionnaire to collect information on knowledge and perception on child sexual abuse. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square. Three hundred and eleven (88.9%) of the respondents, believed that some children were sexually abused by older children, 72.3%  believed that most people who sexually abuse children were not members of the child’s family, 89.7% believed that most sexually abused children were vulnerable to abuse at night, when alone and outside their home. Seventy eight percent of respondents could correctly define child sexual abuse. The sources of information on sexual abuse were from teachers (48.7%), mothers (25.2%), media (23.8%), internet (15.5%) and friends (15.2%). Respondents that come from monogamous households were more knowledgeable on sexual abuse behaviours than respondents from either polygamous or single parent households (p = 0.043).This study showed that most respondents were knowledgeable about sexual abuse and teachers were the highest source of information. The fact that school played a significant role in the knowledge of sexual abuse in this study, poses a need to focus attention on increasing the awareness of students by integrating topics on sexual abuse in primary and secondary school curriculum.

Keywords: Child sexual abuse, Knowledge, Perception, Female Secondary school students.