Assessing the Effectiveness of Child Protection Programme on Child Abuse in Ghana; A Case Study of Shai Osudoku District

Abstract

The protection of children is a global concern as children remain the most vulnerable proportion of the population and the challenge of their vulnerability is without geographical boundaries. This study focus was to examine the impact of child protection programme on the child abuses and violence. The study used a quantitative research design and adopted a well-structured questionnaire to collect data from parent and caregivers in ten sensitized communities in the Shai Osudoku Distict of Ghana. Out of 300 questionnaires administered, 250 were retrieved entered into SPSS for analysis. The study found that 29 percent of the respondent were aware of the child protection activities in the communities and 81 percent indicating no knowledge of the existence of any committee in their community that oversees child protection activities. The study found relationship between activities of child protection and sexual abuse, emotional and physical abuse to be negatively correlated at 0.00 significance level. Also, there was no positive relationship for excessive controlling behaviours and economic abuses. The study found a positively significant relationship between child protection programme and child abuse and violence. The study found urbanizations and individualism of community and logistic issues to be the least challenge whiles untrained staffs remained the biggest challenges for the effective and efficient implementation of child protection activities. The study concludes that awareness creation about child protection advocacy in the community is low with ineffective communication mechanism that provokes community and engagement and collective action towards child protection against any form of abuse and violence. The study recommends that there should be an establishment and training of child protection committee in the various communities which will give lead to a more effective manner of receiving and practicing of safer child protection protocols thereby creating a more friendly and safer environment for the growth and development of the children in that space. The study further recommends that, economic activities relation to child development be subject to proper scrutiny as it appeared the most significant form of abuses in the district.