AbstractA descriptive study to assess the knowledge on child sexual abuse among mothers of mentally challenged children in a selected special school in Eritrea, Africawith the objective (1) to assess the knowledge on child sexual abuse among mothers of mentally challenged children. 2) To find out the association between knowledge of mentally challenged children’s mothers regarding child sexual abuse with selected demographic variables. 3) To develop and administer an information booklet regarding child sexual abuse among mothers of mentally challenged child. Convenience sampling technique was used to select 30 samples .The questionnaire has administered on mothers
regarding child sexual abuse. The findings of the study were: Majority of the samples 16.6% of respondents were in the age group of 18-25 years, 26.6% were in the age group of 25-35, 13.3% were in the age group of 35-45 years and 43.3% were in the age group of above 45 years. Then 20% of mothers had 3 child, 60% mothers had 5 children, 20% mothers had more than 5 children.43.3% mothers were illiterate,46.6% mothers were secondary, 6.6% mothers were higher secondary , and 3.3% mothers were graduate. Then 83.3% mothers were housewife, 16.6% mothers were employee. In the knowledge area36.7% samples have a poor knowledge regarding child sexual abuse and 53.3% samples have average knowledge regarding child sexual abuse and 10% samples have a good knowledge regarding child sexual abuse.
Keywords: child abuse, mentally challenged, knowledge, mothers.