ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study was to determine the underlying factors and consequences of sexual abuse within the secondary school student population. To achieve the purpose of this study two (2) research questions were raised to guide the study. Sample survey design was adopted for this study, the simple random sampling technique was adopted to select one hundred (100) secondary school student both male and female in Ekosodin. The research was about finding out the underlying factors, consequences and suggested remedies of sexual immoralities among the secondary school students using Ekosodin as specific case study. To give answers to the research questions, structured questionnaire was constructed which contains items that provided demographic data and item to elicit responses to  the research question, for the goal of validation, the research instrument was given to the researcher’s project supervisor and two other experts of my department to ascertain face validity of the instrument ,corrections made was incorporated. The instruments were subjected to Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation coefficient. To achieving the method of data analysis includes the sample statistics using the mean to describe the sample with a single value that represents the center of the data and also standard deviation of how the dispersed the data is in relation to the mean.

From the findings of the study it was evident that:

     The factors contributing to sexual abuse among secondary school students include lack of concerned parents; peer group pressure; use of social media; The government's failure to ban the advertising of sex-related products; corrupt nature of the society; bad attitudes of most parents/guardians towards sex; sexual immorality is being supported by the society; the environment in which the child was raised; negative peer influence.

     The consequences of sexual abuse within the secondary school include emotional harm; social withdrawal; poor academic performance; Sex abuse affects someone’s physical health; substance abuse become a way to cope; feelings of guilt or shame; trust issues in their relationships; forming healthy intimate relationships in the future becomes difficult.