Parental Attitudes and Preventive Practices toward Child Sexual Abuse among Secondary School Students in Igbo-Eze South LGA, Enugu State, Nigeria

This study investigated parental attitudes toward sexual molestation of secondary school students by paedophiles in Igbo-Eze South Local Government Area, Enugu State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study investigated way parents are involved in the prevention of molestation of secondary school students, factors parents believed to be responsible for the molestation of secondary school students, and various practices believed by parents to be adopted to prevent molestation of secondary school students by paedophiles in Igbo-Eze South LGA . Survey research design was adopted, with population of 4,610 parents and guardians from 52 secondary schools while 416 was sampled using multi-stage sampling. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data which was validated by three experts and yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.79. Data were analysed using mean and standard deviation for research questions, and t-test hypothesis at 0.05 significance level. Findings revealed that parents largely disagreed on practices like teaching children about body boundaries and handling unsafe situations. =1.50 to 2.49. Conversely, parents agreed that factors like a child’s loneliness =3.92, low self-esteem = 3.88, and hiding the identities of paedophiles =3.96 significantly contributes to molestation. The result show that they strongly endorsed making the home less stressful =3.96 and exposing offenders =3.91. The study concludes that parental awareness, communication, and education are crucial for preventing child sexual abuse.