Teacher-parents’ involvement in the preventions and management of child sexual abuse amongst in-school adolescents in Osun State, Nigeria

Isaac Oyekola, Obafemi Awolowo University

Child sexual abuse (CSA) has both psychological and social consequences on the victim especially in the absence of appropriate help or unwillingness to seek redress. The death of studies on CSA in Nigeria motivated the researcher to find out its prevalence among in-school adolescents and to investigate teacher-parents’ involvement in its preventions and management. To achieve this, cross-sectional research design was adopted and mixed method approach was applied. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among 450 in-school adolescents selected from High School using stratified sampling technique and 10 teacher-parents of adolescents were interviewed. The findings revealed that CSA was high (59.8%). Generally, parental level of involvement in the sexual issues affecting their children is somewhat negative. Consequently, child education, child security, discouragement of the use of handsets among in-school adolescents and severe punishments to offenders will help prevent and manage this menace. This requires both macro and micro level interventions.