Child Violence against School Age Children in the Family and School Contexts and Children Cognitive and Social Development in Southeast Nigeria: Evidence for Policy and Sustainable Development Goals agenda among Developing Nations

Domestic violence against school age children over the years has been a silent killer, with little or no empirical attention among the developing nations where culture and religion endanger the rights of children. While the paucity of research interest and the complex processes in data gathering among the scholars have made the seemingly salient issue silent, the cultural hegemonies among the developing nations especially in the sub-Saharan region, have complicated the possibility of empirical isolation of child violence from the traditionally cherished child upbringing approach among these nations. Southeast Nigeria is one of the regions across the globe, where some cultural and socio-demographic peculiarities have affected the understanding and classification of child violence and hence, has empowered the issue as one of the counterproductive measure against sustainable development goals. The study looked into the afore mentioned issue in southeast Nigeria using survey methodological design among the school age children between the ages of 6years and 10years in the primary and junior secondary schools in the region. 430 pupils were included in the study from 108 schools across 36 communities in the region. Questionnaire instrument was used for data collection, which was filled through ordered approach with the research assistants, while descriptive and inferential statistics were applied in analyzing the collected data. From the findings, there is a high prevalence of child violence in the region, ranging from severe punishment, moderate punishment to child abuse; there is a negative correlation between child violence and children social/cognitive development (P = .000; r = -.098), while child violence in the region is predicted by age, sex, parents occupation and complaining about violence among the children; the overall impact of child violence was found to be anti-sustainable development in the region (P = .000; R2 = 69.2).