Cross-Cultural Assessment of Child Maltreatment: Adapting the Family Background Questionnaire with Ugandan Students

Since the 1990s, the issue of child abuse and neglect has become a matter of public interest in Uganda (UNPAC, 2002). Uganda has taken various steps to provide legal and social protection to children, including public education aimed at changing cultural practices that discriminate against the female child (1995 Constitution Art 36.6; UN Human Rights, 1996). However, there is a dearth of epidemiologic studies investigating the nature and extent of child abuse and neglect in Uganda. Yet this information would be very useful in designing effective intervention and prevention programs, because such programs have been found to work best if they target the specific circumstances of the people they are meant to help (Fontes, Cruz, & Tabachnick, 2001). In addition, Runyan et al. (2002) observed, the lack of good data on the extent and consequences of child abuse and neglect has held back the development of appropriate responses in most parts of the world. Until now, there appears to be no instrument designed to collect such data in the Ugandan context..