An assessment of child protection issues in non-governmental organizations in Masaka municipality: case study child restoration outreach

Abstract

The study was to assess the child protection issues in Masaka Municipality. The objectives of the study were to identify the cause of child abuse as revealed by Child Restoration Outreach, identify the child protection mechanisms used by CRO, to examine the challenges faced by CRO during child protection issues and establish the solutions to child protection issues. The case study adopted qualitative approaches. The sample was 50 respondents which were selected using snowballing technique who were reached because the study was purposive in nature. The observations and interviews with the respondents revealed that the situation of children in Masaka Municipality was pathetic. Almost all forms of child abuse were reported by respondents as: sexual abuse, child torture/physical abuse, child neglect, and child labour and denial of parentage. The causes of child abuse as identified involved poverty, domestic violence, poor nurturing practices, drug abuse and moral degeneration. The child protection mechanisms identified as sensitization and advocacy, the community development officer, media address and OVC stakeholders meeting.The challenges to child protection were reported as; lack of facilitation and budget allocations, corruption, information flow ,false lies, wrong and biased strategies, nature of the law. The solutions/ strategies to address child protection were reported as: economic empowerment, community policing, developing human resource capacity, provision of IEC materials. In conclusion, the study identified that many cases of child abuse in Masaka municipality but this was due to the failure by the government to speed up the prosecution of the suspected offenders. Although the amended section (12) of the Penal Code Act provides for a death penalty to the person found guilty of defilement, most of the offenders have walked free due to the unfriendly justice system in the country. Hence disabling child protection in masaka municipality Therefore, the study made recommendations which focused on legal and policy frameworks to provide the enabling environment to address child abuse through child protection