EVALUATING THE OCCURRENCE OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE AND ITS IMPLICATION TO SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE IN DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL WORK, UNIVERSITY OF BENIN

Abstract

The study evaluated the occurrence of child sexual abuse and the implication for social work practice. The objective of the study was to examine child sexual abuse and the implication for social work practice; to find out the effect of child sexual abuse on the child behavioral development of children; to examine the effect of child sexual abuse on the social development on the children; to examine the perception of students on commonest causes of child abuse sexual abuse and to examine the perception of students on the possible measure to prevent child abuse sexual abuse.The result showed that that a range of preventive strategies can be developed to protect children from different forms of exploitation and that social workers advocates for individuals affected by child sexual abuse. The result also showed that child sexual abuse has a negative effect on the child behavioural development. The study reported that Sexual abuse and exploitation usually have a devastating effect on the physical and mental health of children. The study also revealed that there is necessity to formulate a protection plan for the child and for other child members of the household and that there is need for increase in awareness of students and the integration of sexual abuse on early education of children. The findings, draw conclusions reached in the study and make recommendations based on research objectives and the overall perspective of the main findings while making suggestions for further studies. To facilitate the study, questionnaires were administered to the targeted population. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 22.0) was employed to examine the feedbacks from the questionnaires.