The study investigates how parents' communication strategies contributed to boy-child upbringing against the incidents of rape in Port Harcourt Metropolis. The objectives of the study were to: identify the communication strategies parents in Port Harcourt adopted for the upbringing of boy-children and find out the causes of an increase in incidences of rape in Port Harcourt, despite the parents' communication strategies. The study was anchored on the Social Learning Theory. It employed a survey research design with a total of 2, 051, 430 parents who reside in Port Harcourt. A sample size of 400 was determined using the Taro Yamane formula while purposive sampling techniques were used to select the samples. A questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection and the Weighted Mean Score of the 4-Point Likert scale was used to analyze the data. Results revealed that sexual education, open consent and boundary communication are the strategies parents in Port Harcourt adopted for the upbringing of boy-children. Finding also shows those weak laws, indecent dressing, cultural norms, societal and stereotyping are among the major causes of the increase of incidences of rape despite the communication strategies of the parents in Port Harcourt. The study recommended that Port Harcourt parents should adopt healthy masculinity, communication and role modelling since they help in building boy children against rape and our cultural values; and that, laws against rape and indecent dressing should be strengthened to arrest and prosecute the offenders.
Vol. 3, No 2, pp. 66-74.