Cultural Determinants and Parent-Child Communication as an Effective Tool to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse: A Quick Qualitative Study

ABSTRACT

The current study’s sole specific goal was to use a qualitative approach, from the parents’ emic perspective, to investigate the cultural determinants that influence using parent-child communication as an instrument to protect children from sexual abuse in the six electoral wards of Ife-East Local Government that covered the rural settlement of Ile-Ife. The study adopted a simple random sampling method to select a village from each ward and a convenient sampling method to select six parents from each village, making a total sample size of 36. The study utilized in-depth face-to-face interviews to garner the primary data and content analysis for data analysis. This study found and concluded that parents’ economic activities, religious beliefs, fear of stigmatization or mockery, belief that giving a child sex education via parent-child communication promotes waywardness in the behavior of such a child, belief that sex education should be best confined to formal education, and overconfidence of the parents in their wards were among the cultural determinants influencing the efficacy of parent-child communication as a device to shield young ones from being victims of sexual abuse in the study location. The study recommended public enlightenment via various social institutions on dealing with these cultural determinants.

KEYWORDS:

• Child sexual abuse
• parent-child communication
• cultural determinants
• bottom-top approach
• public enlightenment

Acknowledgments

The authors unreservedly acknowledge the parents that participated in this study and still guarantee the parents’ anonymity and confidentiality.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical standards and informed consent

Ethical committee of the Behavioral Studies Department, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Nigeria approved of this study. Informed consent in verbal form was obtained from all individuals for whom identifying information is included in this article while confidentiality of information was maintained as the questions in the interview did not include the name and contact address of each participant. The rights and integrity of the participants were revered while carrying on the research as no participant was forced to provide the relevant information for this study as each participant was given the opportunity to opt out at any stage of the interview.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The authors declare that there was no support in form of any grant received from any national or international body for this study.

Notes on contributors

S. Olutayo Fakunle

Fakunle, S. Olutayo, MSc, BSc lectures in Sociology at the Department of Behavioural Studies, Redeemer’s University, Nigeria, and specializes in public health, social change, and development in African communities.

A. Aderemi Opadere

Opadere, A. Aderemi PhD, MSc, BSc is currently a lecturer (focus on industrial sociology and gerontology) at Redeemer’s University, Nigeria.