The influence of a lifeskills programme on adolescents’ knowledge of child sexual abuse : a gender analysis

Abstract

At primary prevention level, appropriate knowledge and awareness remain the first line of defence against child sexual abuse. This article provides a gendered analysis of the influence of a lifeskills programme on the sexual abuse knowledge of adolescents who live in impoverished and marginalised settings. A pre/post-test design was used to gather data from 348 adolescents by means of group-administered surveys prior to and after the weeklong residential programme. The pre-intervention results showed lower levels of knowledge among male respondents regarding statements on what child sexual abuse is and statistically significant improvements in this regard were recorded at post-intervention. However, their knowledge still remained lower compared to that of female respondents. Respondents’ knowledge regarding the nature of child sexual abuse suggests the continuation of gender stereotypes which may hamper effective identification and reporting of sexual abuse. Nevertheless, the lifeskills programme demonstrated value in strengthening adolescents’ knowledge of child sexual abuse. It is recommended that future programmes be sensitive to the gendered pre-knowledge of adolescents when providing training on sexual abuse. Research is needed to determine why the programme failed to impact positively on some adolescents’ knowledge about child sexual abuse.