Psychosocial Problems of Rape among Secondary School Students as Perceived by Parents in Ilorin South of Kwara State

This study examined the psychosocial problems of rape in Ilorin South of Kwara State. A descriptive survey design was employed in the study. The population consisted of parents in Ilorin South of Kwara State, with a sample of two hundred and twenty respondents being selected through a multistage sampling method. A researcher designed instrument tagged ‘Psychosocial Problems of Rape Questionnaire (PPRQ)’ was used to collect data. The instrument was well validated by experts in test and measurement. Reliability was ascertained through a test retest method which yielded a reliability co-efficient of 0.77. One research question and four hypotheses guided the study. Data was analysed with mean and rank order, t-test and Analysis of variance. Hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that the psychosocial problems of rape include: an inferiority complex, a feeling of being unsafe, a low self-esteem, depression, emotional stress, social withdrawal, among other problems. Findings also showed that age, gender and religion did not influence the respondents or their responses on the problems of rape, while they differed in their responses based on their educational level. Based on the findings, it was recommended as follows: government should set up serious measures to tackle incidences of rape in schools and punish the rapists severely, and schools should, through counselling, educate the students on how to avoid being victims of rape. Schools should also be fenced all round.


Introduction
Rape is forceful sexual intercourse meted on a person who could be either male or female. Rape is sex by coercion; in other words, it is sex which the victim has not given consent to have. It is a malicious way of having a sexual relationship with the victim. Rape is sexual assault and an abuse of power and authority over the victim. It is a violation of the victim's right to have sex or not. Rape is sexual intercourse that involves force, threat and coercion (Eze, 2009) Rape is a social evil that ravages Nigerian society and the world in general. Onah (2012) noted that rape is a global problem with women and girls being the most vulnerable. There are various kinds of rape including child rape (which is a situation where a child is raped), rape of the elderly (an incident where it is an elderly person is raped), gang rape (which is a rape carried out by more than a person on one victim) (WHO, 2002), and an intimate partner rape (where a person of a close relationship rapes the other).
A lot of stigmatization is associated with rape, which explains the reason why some raped victims and their families are not willing to disclose the incident so that the rapist would be apprehended. Some rapists wear masks before they perpetrate the act so that their identity will not be known by their victims, some also perpetrate the act at night while some do it in broad daylight. Rape is a grievous violation of a human right to privacy. It is sexual abuse meant to demean the victim, and it is an intrusion into the victim's private life.
Rape has become endemic in Nigeria as cases of rape are being reported almost on a daily basis. Sequel to this incessant raping in the country, the Governor of Kaduna, Malam Nasir Al-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State in Nigeria took a bold step of enacting laws on rape to stem the crime in his state. The law says that any man convicted of rape will be castrated. Though the Governor came up with this law in his own state, the Nigerian government is yet to enact severe laws on rape that would really deter further occurrence of rape incidences in the country. The perpetrators of rape could be one's relatives (Jewkes, Levin, Mbananga & Bradshaw, 2002), teachers, colleagues, classmates, clerics, and friends.
Victims of rape go through psychological, social and physically harrowing experiences during and after the act of rape. Psychologically, the victims of rape live with trauma, depression and sadness. Physically, the victim sustains a lot of injuries in the private parts, bleeding and bruises that sometimes need medical attention to heal. Socially, the victim of rape withdraws, becomes afraid of entering into relationships and is afraid of victimization. Sometimes victims of rape become pregnant after the ugly incident. This puts the victim in a serious dilemma on whether to abort the pregnancy or to keep it. The victims could also contract sexually transmitted diseases such as Human Immuno Virus (HIV), Syphilis and Gonorrhea from the rapist. Some female victims sometimes enter into unplanned marriages when they become pregnant, thereby ending up marrying the wrong person of their choice. The agony of a victim that follows rape cannot be over stressed. Raped victims live with the trauma throughout their life time.
Minors who experience rape, particularly children, suffer a lot of pain during the act. The reason being that they are not mature enough for sexual activities. There have been cases of profuse bleeding from the vagina and bruises on the child which requires medical attention. The perpetrators who rape children threaten them so as to prevent them from exposing their wicked act. The early initiation of children into sexual activities can lead them into promiscuity in their later lives. Though some children, due to immaturity, might not remember pain of the rape, their parents live with the psychological and emotional trauma for long after the incidence.

Concept of Rape
Various psychologists and authors have provided definitions of rape. Rape, as defined by Chiedu (2012), is a crime of forcefully having sex with someone against his or her wish. According to Brigneti and Egbomina (2002), rape is an act of sexual violence that involves sexual intercourse without consent or willingness. The definitions point out that rape is a forceful act against the victim. The Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines rape as an unlawful sexual activity; sexual intercourse that is carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person's will or against a person who is under a certain age or someone who is incapable of given valid consent either because of age or mental illness.

Types of Rape
One researcher, Tracy (2012), indicated that there are different types of rape as follows. There is age-related rape (which is a sexual action with a person below a minimum age -usually below twelve years), incest (which is rape carried out on a person who is closely related to the victim), diminished capacity rape (which is a rape carried out on a person who cannot consent to the sex act), partner rape or spouse rape (which is a rape involving the person's partner), acquaintance rape (a rape between people that know each other) and aggravated rape (referring to a rape done under threat). Another type of rape which the literature has neglected to address is rape of the elderly. This is the sexual abuse of persons over sixty years of age; it is the rape of senior citizens (Burgess, & Morgenbesser, 2005).
Gang rape, also known as "streamlining", is another type of rape. In this situation, the rape involves more than one rapist. Two or more people carry out the rape act on one person; it is the rape of a single victim by the violators (Ullman, 2013). This type of rape is often perpetrated against a girlfriend by her boyfriend who invites his male friends to join him in raping the girl. Gang rape, by two or more men, is very dangerous because the chance of transmitting sexually transmitted diseases is high. In addition, the impact of the rape will be felt so much by the victim, psychologically and physically. Larry and Murray (1987) in their research suggest four integrated theories of rape based on macro-sociological analysis. One of these integrated theories holds that rape is a mechanism of gender inequality. The second theory attributes rape to the proliferation of pornographic materials, while the third is due to cultural spillover (called 'cultural spillover theory' which states that rape is due to cultural norms which favour violence for socially legitimate purposes and which are generalized to other social contexts). The fourth theory attributes rape to social disorganization which reduces the social restraint against rape. Other theories of rape include psychoanalytic theory, attribution theory and feminist theory.

Psychoanalytic Theory
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of rape perceived deviant behaviour as a direct reflection of a character disorder that came as a result of sexual desires during infancy that lingered through to adulthood. Freud maintained that there is a relationship between sex and behaviour and that the Oedipal conflict experienced in childhood results in different consequences which depends on the sex of the children. The theory holds that the rapist could have certain motives which might be aggressive, sadistic or sexual. The rapist that exhibits aggressive motives aims to defile, harm and humiliate his victim while sadistic motives are preplanned and aimed to torture victims. When the motive is sexual, the offense is rooted either in unacknowledged homosexual feelings, passive personality, or in their feelings of personal inadequacy.

Feminist Theory
A feminist theory of rape is based on power imbalances between genders in a society. The supporters of this theory are of the opinion that gender violence against women is a result of a power imbalance against females. The criminal justice system and its agents are patriarchal, meaning that the state is male and the law treats females the way their male counterparts treat them. Jewkes (2002) argued that sexual violence against women is viewed to have resulted from the inequality between men and women in society. Men may consider rape against women as a way of exerting power over them. Several theories including those that are socialist, psychoanalytic, liberal, feminist ant-racial, among others make up feminist theory.

Attribution Theory
Attribution theory of rape according to Finchilescu (1991) is not a single theory, rather it consists of a set of models put together to give casual explanations to certain occurrences. The theory provides a theoretical perspective for understanding the perceptions of people as to why things happen. The proponents of this theory attribute people's behaviour manifestations and motivations to how they perceive events. They believe that attribution concerning rape affects how people perceive the rape victim. If the raped victim is treated with support and care, the process of recovery from the incident will be fast, but if the victim is blamed for the rape, the recovery process may be slow and may hinder victims from reporting rape incidences.

Statement of the Problem
Rape incidences are increasing in Nigeria. Although there were earlier cases of rape in the country, the rate at which it is increasing is alarming. Reports of rape are given almost on a daily basis by the media particularly as the country is currently besieged with banditry, kidnapping and insurgencies. Some of the female victims that are kidnapped are raped. When female students in Chiboku Secondary School in Borno State, Nigeria were kidnapped, some of them were later released, with pregnancies and babies.
Victims of rape undergo various harrowing experiences which might lead into suicidal ideation. Rape is a great assault on the victim which is capable of lowering a victim's selfconcept. The trauma associated with rape is enormous. Raped victims suffer stigmatization from the public. Some of them contract sexually transmitted diseases, while some are exposed to unwanted pregnancies. Pregnancy becomes a double tragedy for victims as they have to think about whether to keep the pregnancy or to abort it.
This study therefore examined the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students as perceived by the parents in Ilorin South of Kwara State.

Research Question
What are the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students as perceived by parents in Ilorin South of Kwara State?

Research Hypotheses
Ho1: There is no significant difference in the perception of the parents on the psychosocial problems of rape on secondary school students on the basis of age.
Ho2: There is no significant difference in the perception of parents on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students on the basis of gender.
Ho3: There is no significant difference on the perception of parents on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students on the basis of religion.
Ho4: There is no significant difference in the perception of parents on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students on the basis of educational level of the respondents.

Method
A descriptive survey was employed for the research. The population of the study was all the parents in Kwara state. A sample of two hundred and twenty (220) parents were selected through a multistage sampling method to participate in the study. At stage one, a convenient sampling technique was used to select parents, who are in the Ilorin South Local Government Area, to participate. At stage two, a convenient sampling technique was used to select parents who attended secondary schools and tertiary institutions. These categories of parents were selected because they were literate, therefore they are able to respond to items in the instrument. The instrument for data collection was a researcher designed questionnaire tagged "Psychosocial Problems of Rape Questionnaire which was patterned after a Four-point Likert scale of SA= Strongly agree, A=Agree, D=Disagree and SD=Strongly disagree with assigned points of 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively. The instrument had two parts -A and B. Part A was on demographic data while part B contained twenty items on psychosocial problems of rape which the respondents responded on. The instrument was validated by giving it to experts (with regard to test and measurement). Reliability was ascertained through a test retest method, a situation whereby twenty questionnaire forms were given to respondents who were not among the sample for the study twice, after which the scores of the two administrations were correlated with Pearson's Product Moment Formula. It yielded a 0.77 reliability co-efficient which adjudged the instrument to be reliable. The bench mark of the instrument was obtained by summing the points after administration and dividing by 4 thus; 4+3+2+1= 10/4= 2.50. Any item whose mean is not 2.50 and above was not considered as one of the problems of rape. Data was analysed with mean and rank other to answer the research question while t-test and the Analysis of variance were used to test hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance.

Results
Research Question: What are the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students as perceived by parents in Ilorin South? The results on Table 1 showed that all the items except item 20 have mean scores that are above or within the bench mark of 2.50, therefore they are regarded as psychosocial problems of rape on secondary school students. Item 4 is taken as the least of the problems of rape because the mean score is below the bench mark, hence it is not regarded as a psychosocial problem of rape among secondary school students.

Hypotheses Testing
Hypothesis 1: There is no significant difference in the perception of parents in Ilorin South on the problems of rape among secondary school students in Ilorin South on the basis of age.  Table 2 showed that the cal t of 0.33 is less than crit. t of 1.96 and the p-value of 0.74 is greater than 0.05 level of significance. Since the result is so, the hypothesis is not rejected. Age of the respondents did not make them differ in their perception on psychosocial problems of rape among the secondary school students.
Hypothesis 2: There is no significant difference in the perception of parents in Ilorin South on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students on the basis of gender.  Table 3 showed that the calculated t. of 1.03 is less than the critical t. of 1.96 and the p-value of .302 is greater than 0.05 alpha. Since the result was so, the hypothesis was not rejected. This indicated that the gender of the respondents did not make them have a different perception on the psychosocial problems associated with rape among secondary school students.
Hypothesis 3: There is no significant difference in the perception of parents in Ilorin South on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students on the basis of religion. The result in table 4 showed that the calculated F-ratio of 1.43 is less than the critical F-ratio of 3.00 and the p-value of 0.24 is greater than 0.05 level of significance. The hypothesis is not rejected because of the result of the ANOVA test. This implies that the religion of the respondents did not make them vary in their perception on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students.
Hypothesis 4: There is no significant difference in the perception of parents in Ilorin South on psychosocial problems of rape on secondary school students on the basis of level of education.  Table 5 revealed that the calculated F-ratio of 4.16 is greater than the critical F-ratio of 3.00 and the p-value of 0.02 is less than 0.05 level of significance, therefore the hypothesis is not accepted. This means that level of education made the respondents differ in their perception on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students. To determine the cause of the difference, a post hoc analysis using Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) was carried out.  Table 6 showed that all the groups differed in their perception on the psychosocial problem of rape, but group A (secondary school) with the least mean of 41.43 contributed in a major way on the observed difference in the ANOVA table.

Discussion
The findings of the research in the research question showed that the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students as perceived by the respondents are: feelings of being inferior by the victim, feelings of being unsafe, depression, emotional stress, low self-esteem, physical injuries, stigmatization, poor social adjustment, fear, mood swings, lack of trust of people, social withdrawal, dropping out of school, among other psychosocial problems. In support of these findings, Alhasan (2013) stated that victims of rape have depression and trauma months after the incident of rape. Also, in tandem with the findings, Litchfield and Litchfield (2012) opined that psychologically, rape may bring about feelings of guilt, anxiety, fear, disappointment, frustration, anger, depression and lower self-esteem.
The findings in Hypotheses 1 and 2 revealed that the age and gender of the respondents did not make them differ in their perceptions on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students. The result might have turned out to be so because the respondents are living in the same Ilorin South and are aware that there are cases of reported and unreported rape in Ilorin South. The result might also be because both male and female respondents and relatives of raped victims feel the negative impact of rape in society. Corroborating this finding is a similar study by Agubosi, Fashina and Hammed (2020) who found no significant difference in the factors that motivate risky sexual behaviours among in-school adolescents in Kwara State on the research titled 'Marital sex and risky life-style behaviours among in-school adolescents in Kwara state on the basis of age and gender'. This finding is not in tandem with Tara (2006) who opined that power imbalances against women facilities their risk of being abused sexually more than men.
`The finding in Hypothesis three showed that the religion of the respondents did not make them have a different perception on the psychosocial problems of rape among secondary school students. The result might be so because even though they belong to different religions, rape is a social problem which everyone is aware of.
The findings of this research further showed that the level of education of the respondents made them differ in their perception on the psychosocial problems of rape. The result might be due to the fact that the level of education influences one's knowledge and understanding on issues. However, this finding did not support Agubosi, Fashina and Hameed (2020) who discovered that the level of education of the respondents did not make them differ on factors that motivate the risky life-style behaviours of in-school adolescents.

Conclusion
This study examined the psychosocial problems of rape as perceived by parents in the Ilorin Metropolis of Kwara state. The findings revealed that psychosocial problems of rape are feelings of being inferior, depression, stigmatization, feelings of being unsafe, fear, social withdrawal, emotional stress, poor social adjustment, among other problems. The findings also revealed that age, gender and religion did not make the respondents differ in their perception on the psychosocial problems of rape while the level of education did make them differ in their perception on the psychosocial problems of rape.

Recommendations
Based on the findings of this research, the following recommendations were made.
1. Counsellors should counsel the students on how to avoid being victims of rape and intensify their efforts in bringing their counselling services to the raped victims so as to alleviate their sufferings due to rape.
2. Government should set up serious measures to tackle incidences of rape in schools and make sure that rapists are severely punished.
3. Government should mount up serious campaigns against rape.
4. The consequences of rape should be made public so that people would know the impact on the victims. 5.Schools should be well secured with fences by the government and security men be employed as guards.