Community readiness to prevent child maltreatment in Mozambique: An investigation among key informants at country level and from Maputo city

Background

Prevention of child maltreatment (CM) stakeholder assessments are required to determine the level of readiness and aspects in need of special attention in high-risk settings. Although instruments have been proposed to measure community readiness, few have been implemented in low-income countries. This applies to Mozambique where a CM prevention law has been in place for some time.

Objective

To assess the readiness of Mozambican stakeholders to prevent CM, including ones at national level one “local” level, that of Maputo city.

Participants and setting

Eighteen key stakeholders at national (n = 11) and “local” (n = 7) level were interviewed. Maputo city is Mozambique’s capital and most populated city; it is also one of its 11 provinces.

Methods

Interview-based, the study utilised the WHO 10-dimensional Readiness Assessment for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment (RAP-CM) tool. Average scores of community readiness to prevent CM were compiled overall and by dimension, all respondents aggregated and for the national and, Maputo ones separately.

Results

The overall community readiness was 5.4 out of 10 corresponding to the preparation stage; those of the stakeholders from the country and Maputo were comparable. The dimension-specific scores reached varied from vague awareness to initiation work. Four 10 dimensions scored below the overall average (current programme; scientific data; material resources; and human and technical resources) And six were equal to or above it (will to address the problem; institutional links and resources; informal social resources; attitudes; legislation and knowledge). No remarkable differences emerge in scores between stakeholders from national and Maputo.

Conclusion

Enhanced material, human and technical resources are needed as prerequisite for the country to move beyond the preparation stage with regards to addressing CM. The country would benefit from synergies with developments in other violence-related areas and invest in the coordination of wide-ranging types of intervention.