CHILD ABUSE AND THE EFFECT ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT IN OREDO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA
ABSTRACT
The need for this study is to educate parents, teachers, public and government on the role they can play in order to safeguard the right of the child. It also serve as a means of addressing the issue of child abuse and it effect on child development because it is also a way of educating all and sundry on why it should not be practiced. The major objective of this study is to To examine the relatiohsip between child abuse and poverty,  and it also  examine the importance of proper sensitization of the masses on child abuse, to examine the relationship between environment, home background and child abuse and to determine the relationship between parental negligence and child abuse. The analysis of the study will be based on the instrument  of quantitative and quantitative methods of data  analysis. It will be analysed using questionnaire and Chi Square. Base on my findings family environment or home background influence abuse and is the major cause of child abuse. Parent negligence, improper sensitization, poverty, industrializing, outlook etc possess threat to the development and insecurity in Benin Metropolis.
TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1    Background of the Study    -
1.2    Statement of the Problem    -    
1.3    Research Questions    -    -    -        
1.4    Objectives of the Study    -    -    
1.5    Significance of the Study
CHAPTER TWO    
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1    Review of Theoretical Literature
2.2    Empirical Literature    Review -    
2.3    Review of Relevant Theories    -    
2.4    Theoretical Framework    
2.5    Hypothesis    -    
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design    -    -    -    
3.2 Population of the Study    -    -    
3.3 Sample Size and Sample Techniques    
3.4 Method of data Collection     
3.5 Method of Data Analysis    -    
CHAPTER FOUR
4.1    Socio–Demographic Characteristics of Respondents    -    
4.2    Major Research Issues    -    
4.3    Cross Tabulation of Research Variables        
4.4    Testing of Hypothesis    -        
4.5    Discussions of Findings    
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
5.1    Summary of Findings    -        
5.2    Conclusion    -        
5.3    Implications of Findings for Social Work Practice in Nigeria
5.4    Recommendation-
Reference    -    
Questionnaire    -
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1    Background of the Study
Child abuse is as old as far as when human existential attained the knowledge of formal or informal documentation of positive and negative accounts. However, the concept that children have specific rights deserving of enforcement and protection is a comparatively modern development, Edokpolor, 2010. The popular assumption in time past was the best interest of the child at heart, there was no thus the necessity to think in terms of child right. The idealized perception of adult child relations ignored the grain realities on ground. But subsequent to the various reform movement of 19th century, concern for the perception of the dignity, equality and basic human rights consciousness children have since become a constituency in their own right in whose behalf laws have been enacted providing for protection against the abuse of parents, economic exploitation and social neglect, Ali, 2001.
Children are individuals and are immature human but culture determines the different ways they should act and the things they are supposed to do, Francis, 2000. It is after all an axiom of international declaration that the child for the full and harmonious development of his personality, should grow up in a family environment in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.
In spite of the view about children, it has become an important concern for scholars and the general public in the existence of child abuse i.e were children are physically, emotionally, psychologically and socially demoralized, whereas they are meant to be protected and the norms, value that make up the society should be internalized enough to the independent responsibilities for the continuous upliftment of the society but rather they are used negatively at their own detriment.
The issue as regards child abuse should be viewed as a social problem which should be critically being addressed and proper solutions projected. The interpretation of child abuse in recent context when the trafficking of child become the order of the day, individual in different part of the world most especially in Africa engaged in trafficking children especially from the rural areas, Glamour Girls, 20002.
An article of the United Nations Convention on the right of children urges everybody to recognize the right of the child, protect it from physical abuse e.g. rape, child labour, hawking, street vending that can drain the child mentally or any form of inhumane treatment that can hazardous to child’s development especially the child’s education.
Child abuse is any action or inaction towards children that will either cause them pain or harm (directly or indirectly) or deprive them of their rights, Herrenkohi, 2008.
Simply put, any attempt to violate children’s right. Child abuse in Nigeria is increasingly an alarming rate and it seems no one cares. A child needs to have equal access and right over resources, development benefits and even rights to make certain decisions and suggest the way forward in our society. Many factors are responsible for the causes of child abuse in most countries of the world. Parents had the unrestricted authority to do a child whatever was deemed necessary. Usually the father made all disciplinary decision. According to Marzouki, 2002, children do not have the right to survival, the right to health, the right to be protected from all form of economic exploitation, the right to leisure, recreation and cultural activities, the right to special measure of protection in case of handicap, Marzouki, 2002.
1.2    Statement of the Problem
Child abuse is of a recent happening but rather it is an issue that is not limited to particular family, state, country but it cuts across different ethnic groups in the society, Hugbes, 2005 .
The major problem faced by an abused child is that they are unable to fight back at the physical attack melted out on them and also to share their experience with a loved one. What also seems to be a great problem in child abuse is the mental, physical attacks, psychological, social which most time result to death of the child. It affects the child boldness and makes him or her feel inferior amongst is age group.
What obtains today is probably due to poverty, parents in the rural areas hand over their children to urban dwellers who most often fail to put them through school rather than using them as unpaid servants or street hawkers. Some of the consequences of child abuse is that children who experience abuse and neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as juveniles, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult and 30% more likely to commit violent crime. Other consequences could be physical, health, shaken baby syndrome, impaired brain development (Centres for Diseases Control and Prevention, 2008).
The situation Assessment and Analysis (SAA) undertaken by United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF, 2001), states that “millions of Nigerian children and women face special problems of disadvantages, discrimination, abuse and exploitation sometimes in appealing circumstances”. Many children and women is common in Nigerian homes and is culturally sanctioned due to culture or traditional constrains is highly stressed, quasi nuclear-urban families. Urban conditions and corresponding changes in the nature of the family and unemployment have also created conditions in which many children suffer maltreatment from negligence. Talking of the problems of exploitation that face so many Nigerian children, huge numbers of children are engaged in hazardous or exploitative forms of child labour. Many of these children particularly those coming from the rural, enter the urban labour market through the activities of child traffickers. Some children in particular girls as well as young women become victims of sexual exploitation at the worst of cases end up as debt bonded sex weapons in the hands of international prostitution racket. Children are invariably among the principal victims of bloody ethno-religious and other conflicts that befall communities across the country. The more general problem that Nigerian children face, particularly those living in the urban slum areas and growing up amidst dangers and corrosive influences of the society deeply scarred in moral decay include violent crime, vigilantism and drugs. As a result of such activities some children find themselves in conflict with the law as juvenile offenders (UNICEF, 2011).
     Research Questions
 Is child abuse caused by poverty?
Is child abuse caused by illiteracy?
Is child abused caused by environment?
What is the significant relationship between child abuse and child labour?
1.4    Objectives of the Study
1.    To ascertain if child abuse is caused by poverty.
2      To find out if child abuse is caused by illiteracy
3.      To determine if child abuse is influenced by environmental factors.
4.     To determine the significant relationship between child abuse and child labour.
1.5      Significance of the Study
Child abuse is currently a worldwide issue that draws the attention of everyone. The effects and possible solution to avoid child abuse will be of great importance not just to the child but the society as it will be discussed in this study. The need this study is to educate parents, teacher, public and government the role they can play in order to safeguard the right of the child. It also serve as a means of addressing the issue of child abuse and it effect on child development because it is also a way of educating all and sundry on why it should not be practiced.