CHILD ABUSE AND IT’S EFFECTS IN OUR SOCIETY AT LARGE
ABSTRACT
This project work was embarked upon to review the effect of child abuse in our society at large and to proffer possible solutions to the problem. The review revealed different forms of child abuse melted out on children in Edo State by parents, teachers and guidance. Some of the abuse and consequences were attributed to poverty, ignorance and inadequacies in protection of children while others are seen as deliberate. The population of the study comprises of children in Edo State. A total of 100 questionnaires were used for data collection and the analyses were presented in table one to twenty and the total scores were used to analyze the data. It was revealed that children of school age are thrown out of school because of inability of their parents to train them. Base on the researchers findings, some recommendations were made.
TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER ONE
Background of the study
Statement of Problem
Purpose of the study
Significance of the study
Limitation of the study
Scope of the study
Research questions
Definition of Terms
CHAPTER TWO
Literature review
CHAPTER THREE
Research methodology
CHAPTER FOUR
Data analysis and interpretation
CHAPTER FIVE
Summary
Conclusion
Recommendation
REFERENCES
QUESTIONNAIRE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Child abuse is also called cruelty to children; the willful infliction of pain and suffering on children through physical, sexual or emotional mistreatment. Prior to the term, child abuse normally referred to only physical mistreatment but since then, its application has expanded to include, in addition to inordinate physical violence, unjustifiable verbal abuse, the failure to furnish proper shelter,, nourishment, medical treatment or emotional support.
Child abuse can also be seen as the crime of harming a child in a physical, sexual or emotional way. Child abuse is also any illness, impairment or abnormal condition that affects primarily infants and children e.g. those in the age span that begins with the fetus and extends through adolescence.
Although, for the most part, the diseases of childhood are similar to those of the adult, there are several important differences for example certain specific disorders such as precocious puberty are unique to children. Others such as inflammation of the kidney are common in children and infrequent in adults. At the same time, some diseases that are common in adults are infrequent to children. These include essential hypertension (high blood pressure).
Education is an instrument of social, mental and economic development through which right values and attitude for proper development are inculcated. Child abuse and its consequences which is the unjust treatment given to a child, disturb this development process.
It is a practice whereby children are battered, deprived of some basic needs in the home and at school. The saying that the child is the father of the man recognizes the fact that the quality of today’s child will determine the quality of tomorrow’s man.
Truly, the present economic hardship in the country is a fascination of child abuse. In this condition, education of the child becomes the victim of economic down turn of the nation. For those that attend school, many are hawking and pushing wheel-barrow, car wash as part time job to raise the school fees. While others feeds ad cloth the family through the venture. As a result of this abusing condition, the cumulative influence of these activities may have poor academic performance as its consequences. The offshoot of this child abuse and the consequences is examination malpractice to make for academic deficiencies resulting from failure to attend school regularly and devotion to class activities. Thus, a child generally is a boy or a girl of any age between infancy and adolescence. But for the convince of law, a definite age bracket is ascribed to a child. According to Eigbe (2006), a child in the southern states in Nigeria is a person between the age of 0 – 14 years and in northern states between 0 – 12 years.
Child abuse is a type of physical or mental injury or maltreatment of a person who is regarded as a child. The definition of child abuse has been expanded considerably to include more than just the beaten and sexually abuse child. It extends to any condition injurious to child’s physical or emotional health that has been inflicted by parents, guidance or other caretakers and school mates. The situation should be that of intentional infliction of injuries other than accidental means like suffering, harm by reasons of consequences, malnutrition, sexual abuse of growing up under condition which threaten his or her survival. Definite knowledge as to the nature and scope of child abuse appears to be lacking due to the difficulties associated with the definition of the concept as well as the cross cultural global issue regarding what is and what is not child abuse. In western orientation, child abuse extends to various misuses of children, especially with regards to functions relating to certain responsibilities such as “child labour” either in the form of “farm work “, or street hawking which many children in African cultural content embark upon as an acquired work rule in an extended family system.
Children belong to the defenseless and disadvantaged group. They should not be harmed or maltreated in any way as they are incapable of appreciating the dangers they face and the adverse effects which ill treatment have on their future development. Other children, especially adolescents are exposed, as are adults to environmental hazards that they deliberately seek such as cigarette smoking and the use of alcohol and other drugs. This article reviews the scope of diseases that affect children with particular emphasis on the ways in which the unique attributes of the growing child and special aspects of his environment serve to modify the causes, effects and treatment of particular diseases.
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