Child sexual abuse among primary and secondary School Children in small scale gold mines Geita District, Tanzania

Background: Child sexual abuse is one of the current social challenges to development today. Globally, there are an estimated 36 per cent of women aged 20–24 who got married before they reached 18 years of age (1). Child sexual abuse has substantial health consequences, including physical (e.g. injuries), sexual (e.g. HIV infection and other reproductive health problems), psychological and behavioural and other long-term health problems (e.g. heart disease and mental ill health). Study objectives: To investigate forms, causes, the effects and prevalence of child sexual abuse in small scale gold mines, Geita District. Methodology: The study adopted a cross-sectional study, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study was conducted in Geita District- small scale mines in 10 primary and secondary schools randomly selected. A total of 150 primary and secondary school boys and girls participated in the study. Self-administered questionnaires; in-depth interviews and Focus group discussion respectively were used to gather information’s. Key informant interviews were done to community leaders, police officer, District education officer, Social Welfare officer, Teachers, Health officer, Advocate, FBOs and NGO dealing with children. SPSS version 16 was used for data entry, cleaning and subsequently analysis to produce simple statistical data i.e. percentages and frequencies. Results: Among 150 participants 65 (43.3%) were males and 85(56.75) were female with age range between 11-20 years and mean age was 15.25. The findings indicate that child sexual abuse often occurs many times commonly in mines area 88.7%. The commonly reported forms of child sexual abuse was rape 80.5% followed by exposure to sexual photography 68.1% and others forms. Majority of the respondents 96.0% indicated that girls are more at risk of child sexual abuse as compared to boys. The vulnerability to sexual abuse increases with the age of a child mostly between 12-15 years 64%, followed by those between 16-18 years (46%), then 6-11 years (44%). The main perpetrators of sexual abuse were mentioned as small scale miner’s workers, motorcycle drivers, teachers, parents and neighbours. This study reported that 60 ( 40.8%) respondents ( male and female) had experienced penetrative sex, followed by exposure to phonograph and pictures 58 (38.9%), sexual messages 51 (34.9%), kissing, rubs in sexual way, 39 (27.5%), romance/genitals breast touched was 36 (24.5%),rape 31(21.1%),touched genital parts,20(13.8%), and someone take off her/his own clothes and show genital parts, 8(5.6%). The causal factors posited are analysed to be poverty, family separation/divorce, negative cultural practice and misconceptions, lack of awareness of some forms of sexual abuse, children’s lifestyle and temptations, bad peer influence, lack of parental love and care. The effects of child sexual abuse were found out to be physical and psychological torture, health consequences including HIV/AIDS and STIs, increase of street children, physical harm from men, increased school dropout and early pregnancy. Conclusion: The study findings indicate that the prevalence of Child sexual abuse in small scale gold mining in Geita district is high at 40.8% for children at the age of 12-15 years. The highest form of CSA identifies were rape 80.5% among others. There are various causes associated with CSA and the most reported causes included poverty (35.3%). Among the reported impact of CSA was pregnancy for girls (43.3%) and this contributed to school drop outs (42%). Recommendations: Therefore with these findings it is recommended that prevention of CSA among primary and secondary schools in small scale Gold mining should be an urgent public health priority in the country. There should also be efforts to create a strong partnership with government and other stakeholders to establish programmes to improve communities responsibilities towards child protection through community awareness on cause, forms and effects of CSA in the area. Efforts should also be made to improve household economy, so that poor families meet their family needs in order to protect vulnerable children from sexual abusers. The government – both central and local should reinforce the existing laws on distribution of pornography at all levels and take stiffer measures against perpetrators of CSA to prevent the problem in the community