Prevalence and Consequences of Child Maltreatment in The Konongo Metropolis of The Ashanti Region-Ghana

Childhood experiences apparently affect the behaviour of the individual one way or the other. Hostile treatment during childhood may determine how the child may behave during his or her adulthood. With reference to investigating the prevalence and consequences of the maltreatment in Ghanaian cultural context, a non-experimental cross sectional design was employed to conduct in-depth quantitative study, integrating a simple random sampling method for sampling and data collection. It was found that all the respondents have been victims of child maltreatment. The trauma from victimisation adversely affects their behaviour. Majority of the victims suffer behaviour disorder, substance abuse, learning difficulty, anti-social behaviour, feeling of anxiety and alienation and difficulty in acquiring job. Religion was found to influence abuse; however abuse is less likely to happen between perpetrator and victims that share same religious denomination. Child abuse in Konongo was identified as more occurring between the ages of 13 and 15 but likely to record high rate at age 9. These findings were seen as culturally grounded and can therefore be theorised to explain future occurrences of child abuse in Konongo in general.