Abstract
The study investigated the “Role of Librarians in Child Abuse Sensitization in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State’’. Simple random sampling was used to select 32 librarians (16 males and 16 females) from four libraries in four tertiary institutions (University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State University, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education and Rivers State School of Nursing). The instrument used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire titled “Role of Librarians in Child Abuse Sensitization in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State (ROLCAS)”. The instrument was structured in four point rating scale of agreement; that is (Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree). The validity of the instrument was carried out by two research experts in the department of Library and information science in Ignatius Ajuru University of Education. The reliability of the instrument was determined using test- retest method. The result was correlated using Pearson Product Moment Correlation, and yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.93, which indicated that the instrument was reliable. The gathered data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation and hypotheses was tested at 0.05 level of significance. It was found that flogging/beating, denial of food, hawking, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, denial of books, unpleasant touches among others are forms of child abuse in the society. Also, it was found that disabilities, death of parents, poverty, unemployment, violent parents, low education, social isolation of families, among others are the causes of child abuse. The study also concludes that it is necessary to disseminate research information to social services, promoting awareness of child abuse by recommending novels, enhance supply of child abuse literatures in schools and develop programmes on child abuse and its prevention among others. Finally, it was also found among others that efforts should be made to educate parents and children about child abuse through the promotion of reading culture in the library, improve positive parenting through reading related literature, and provide community based reading activities on preventing child abuse. The study recommends that librarians should contribute to solving the menace of child abuse by the utilization of library holdings for awareness and sensitization. KEYWORDS: Role, Librarian, Child, Abuse, Sensitization DOI : 10.7176/IKM/9-5-06 Publication date :May 31 st 2019
Highlights
Child abuse is a widespread phenomenon that has attracted local and global concern
Nordqvist (2018) reported that child abuse is a serious problem that resulted in 1,750 child fatalities in the U.S in 2016.One study has it that in the United States, Child Protective Services (CPS) received 676,000 reports of individuals experiencing abuse or neglect in 2016.Despite this trend, child abusein Nigeria and Africa, has not yet attracted the interest of researcher as there is a paucity of data
Ho1:There is no significant difference between the mean responses of male and female librarians on the functions of librariansin child abuse sensitization in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State
Summary
Child abuse is a widespread phenomenon that has attracted local and global concern. The menace of child abuse is widespread and cuts across cultural, sex, ethnic and religious groups. Alokan (2010) defined child abuse as any behavior which neglects the child’s survival and development needs, causes physical or emotional injury, harassment or subject the child to measures, situations and experiences which interfere with healthy development towards adulthood. In the view of the World Health Organization (WHO)child abuse comprises all form of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial and www.iiste.org other exploitation resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the contexts of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power. Child abuse could be seen asany form of physical, emotional and sexual cruelty done to a child that may negatively affects the health and development of a child
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