PARENTAL FACTORS AS PREDICTORS OF CHILD’S RIGHTS ACT ACCEPTANCE AND COMPLIANCE AMONG PARENTS IN IBADAN, NIGERIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Nigeria has domesticated the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) of 1989 through the Child’s Right Act (CRA) of 2003, however there are widespread violations of the Act even among parents across the country, particularly in Oyo State. Previous studies on CRA have focused more on the general acceptability of the Act with little emphasis on the factors predicting its acceptance and compliance. This study, therefore, investigated the extent to which parental factors (parental culture, socio-economic status, parental age, marital status, parental knowledge, authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles) predicted acceptance and compliance of the CRA among parents in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The study was anchored on Ecological Systems and Child’s Rights theories, while the descriptive survey design was used. Six local government areas (LGAs) were randomly selected from Ibadan. The 1978 WHO 30 × 7 cluster sampling technique was used to divide each LGA into seven clusters, making a total of 42 clusters. From each cluster, 30 parents were randomly selected, making a total of 1,260 parents. Child’s Rights Act knowledge (r=0.83), Child’s Rights Act Acceptance and compliance (r=0.96), Parental Culture (r=0.93) and Parenting Styles (r=0.85) questionnaires were used for data collection. These were complemented with nine sessions each of Focus Group Discussion and Key Informant Interview with children and teachers respectively. Quantitative data were subjected to Pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance, while the qualitative data were content analysed. Respondents’ mean age was < 19 years, while parents’ marital status were married (68.1%) and divorced (2.3%). Child’s rights knowledge (r=.70), authoritative style (r=.51), parental culture (r=.39), socio-economic status (r=.-23), parental age (r=.11) and authoritarian style (r= .07) had significant correlations with CRA, while permissive style and marital status did not. All the independent variables jointly predicted CRA acceptance and compliance (F(1238)=177.53); accounting for 53.4% of its variance. While child’s rights knowledge (β= .59), authoritative style (β = .15), socio-economic status (β = .08), culture (β=.15) and marital status (β=.07) had relative contributions to CRA acceptance but parental age, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles did not. Interviews showed that parents were moderately in compliance with CRA in the way they are caring and meeting the needs of their children and wards due to the economic hardship. Authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, culture, child rights knowledge, parental age and socio-economic status influenced Child’s Rights Acts acceptance and compliance among parents. Therefore, parents, social welfare officers and child’s rights advocates should consider these factors while enforcing the Child’s Rights Act. Keywords: Parental factors, Child’s Rights Act, Acceptance and compliance. Word count: 420