Girls & Violence

 

National and state studies indicate a link between violence, teen pregnancy and substance abuse among girls and the violence they experience in the home or at the hands of their partners.

Forty-four percent of girls and 13.83% of boys arrested for murder or non-negligent manslaughter killed a parent, stepparent, or other family member. This is most likely related to the high incidence of abuse, especially sexual abuse, girls experience in the home. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for all young women aged 15 - 24, and the single leading cause of death of African American young women aged 15 - 24.

• One-half to two-thirds of the teen mothers surveyed in three major studies reported being sexually molested before their first pregnancy.
• According to the Chicago Tribune, in Illinois the average age of fathers of babies born to teenage mothers is over 21 years.
  
  
• The rate of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) among teenage girls is tow and one half times the rate of teenage boys, thus indicating that disease is being spread from the adult male population to teenage girls.
  
  
• Twenty-six Percent of pregnant teens reported that their partners physically hurt them and 40 - 60 percent said that the battering began or escalated after their boyfriends learned they were pregnant.
  
  
• Being abused or neglected in childhood increased the likelihood of arrest for women by 77 percent.
• In 1986, forty-one percent of incarcerated women said that they had been sexually and physically abused.
  
  
• More than half of the adolescent girls who reported being sexually assaulted were assaulted in a dating situation.
  
  
• In a study of gang members in Hawaii, sixty-two percent of girl gang members had been sexually abused or assaulted.
  
  
• Being female and being a gang member increase the risk of having made a suicide attempt.
• Between 1991 and 1995, the rate of girls arrested rose 35%--more than double the rate for boys. This increase is fueled mostly by a growth in violent crime. However, the total number of boys arrested is still much greater than the total number of girls arrested.