SEXUAL VIOLENCE AMONG FEMALE UNDERGRADUATES IN ANAMBRA STATE: PREVALENCE, PATTERNS AND COUNSELLING PRACTICES

Abstract

Sexual violence is a global public health problem that cuts across social class, cultures, tribes etc. and has permeated the fabrics of tertiary institution and many work places as long as humans have reasons to interact. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence, patterns and counselling practices of sexual abuse among female undergraduates in Anambra State. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised female 12,247 undergraduate students in chosen tertiary institutions in Anambra State. The sample size of 600 female undergraduates were chosen using the multi-stage sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire. The questionnaire contained three sections; Section A contains items on prevalence and patterns of sexual violence; while Section B comprised items on counselling implications on sexual violence. The instrument was validated by two experts while Cronbach Alpha Method was used to check the internal consistency of the questionnaire items. It yielded an overall co-efficient of 0.89 which is considered high enough for the study. For answering the three research questions posed, frequency counts, percentages and mean were used. It was found out that a little more than half of the respondents had experienced sexual violence in their life-time with majority of them experiencing it just once in their life-time. The major forms of sexual violence ever experienced were fondling of sensitive parts while the commonest place of sexual violent occurrences was in the home of perpetrators. Most circumstances that led to sexual violence was victims’ visitation to home of perpetrator and the most common consequence of sexual violence is psychological problems followed by emotional problems. The result also revealed that all couselling practices against sexual violence like shaping systematic desensitization were agreed on by the respondents. The prevalence of sexual violence in this study was high. It was recommended amongst others that the counselling profession in Nigeria should build the capacity of her members to be able to respond adequately to issue of sexual violence in Nigeria.