Child-on-child sexual abuse in public primary schools in Kibaha, Tanzania

Abstract

This paper is based on research carried out to examine sexual abuse by children against fellow children, technically known as Child-on-Child Sexual Abuse, in short COCSA, by investigating factors which drove pupils to sexually abuse their fellow pupils and ways to prevent such abuse in public primary schools. The study was conducted in a public primary school in Kibaha, Pwani Region, using a qualitative approach which employed a case study design. Data collection instruments included in-depth interviews, naturalistic observation, focused group discussions and questionnaires. The study used a total of 82 respondents to generate the data needed for the study. After content analysis of the data, some of the findings showed that COCSA was real in the primary school and most of the respondents were aware of the existence of COCSA in the school. One of the four study conclusions was that there existed factors that contributed to making children either victims or perpetrators of COCSA. Finally, one of the three recommendations of the study was that Government should establish COCSA awareness programmes for the entire country through text and audio-visual media to help prevent children from being recruited into COCSA.
Keywords: Child-on-child sexual abuse, public primary schools, safe schools, school pupils