Community perceptions about child neglect and its effects in Bushenyi District

Abstract

Child neglect is a condition in which a caretaker responsible for the child, either deliberately or by extra-ordinary inattentiveness, permits the child to experience avoidable present suffering and/or fails to provide one or more of the ingredients generally deemed essential for developing a person’s physical, intellectual and emotional capacities. Child neglect leads to increased street children, school drop outs, child marriages, teenage pregnancies, juvenile delinquency. In Uganda, child neglect was ranked the highest violation of children's rights. Therefore, the study sought to determine the community perceptions about child neglect in Bushenyi District. The study employed a qualitative research approach and descriptive study design to both males and females aged between 18-40years and enrolled 10 respondents selected using a non-probability sampling technique of quota and purposive sampling. In-depth interviews and Key informant interviews were used to collect data. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Results indicated that the community of Bushenyi district understood child neglect as an act of denying a child the basic needs of life and abandoning the child. Both males and females were being neglected and the age was below 15 years. The causes of child neglect were alcoholism, death of parents, domestic violence, family breakdown, ignorance, polygamy, poverty, primitiveness, culture and Children with disabilities. The challenges faced by neglected children were death, emotional depression, nakedness, psychological torture, street children, stunted growth, drug abuse, alcoholism to the children, suffering from diseases like HIV AIDS, suicide, unwanted pregnancies and child labor. The different forms of child neglect in Bushenyi district were care neglect, educational neglect, medical neglect and physical neglect. The reasons for the prevalence of child neglect were Primitiveness among parents, need for children to grow with motivation and parents not being aware about laws against child neglect. The key recommendations were; policy makers, non-government organizations, government of Uganda and community of Bushenyi District need to be aware that child neglect still exists in Bushenyi District and need to come up with measures to reduce the problem.