Early Childhood Female Teachers’ Awareness of the Child Abuse Protection System

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate female kindergarten teachers' awareness of the child protection system in Saudi Arabia. To achieve such objective, the author used the descriptive approach to give a detailed description of the variables of the study. The sample of the study included (633) female teachers. Results revealed that 94.9% of the teachers were aware of the protection system in Saudi Arabia and the laws of child abuse punishment. It was also found that most prevalent types of abuse were psychological abuse by 58.5%, followed by physical abuse by 22.9%, negligence by 10.3%, sexual abuse by 6.3%, and finally exploitation by 1.7%. These results were against the reports of Family Safety, which stated that negligence was the most common type of abuse among children. Results also indicated that 64.1% of the female teachers preferred to ask for help from a family member to report abuse and 10.1% preferred to call the police. Drawing on the findings, the pedagogical findings have been discussed. Keywords: childhood, female teacher, awareness; abuse, Child Protection System.