ABSTRACT

The study examined child defilement and social work intervention in Ovia North East Local Government Area, Edo State. The objective of the study was to examine the causes of child defilement in Ovia North East Local Government Area; to investigate the effect of child defilement in Ovia North East Local Government Area; to know the societal responses to child defilement in Ovia North East Local Government Area; to find out possible ways child defilement be curbed in Ovia North East Local Government Area and to assess the roles of social workers in the issues of Child defilement.

The cross sectional research design was adopted for this study. Four hundred (400) copies of questionnaire were distributed to 400 respondents in Ovia North East Local Government Area. Data collected were analyzed using frequency count, percentages and mean, with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 24.0.

The empirical result revealed child defilement often leads to poor childhood experiences and often leads low self-esteem and that the persistent failure to meet a child’s physical and/or psychological needs makes children vulnerable to defilement.   The study recommends that strict laws should be enforced to deal with abusers in the society and that Health and social workers should be trained regularly on how to handle confidentiality and child defilement issues adequately which would help to build trust for disclosure.

Key words: children, child defilement, social work, societal response.