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20 percent of girls report abuse by date
©New York Times
© St. Petersburg Times, Their faces are far younger than those that appear in public service advertisements about domestic violence. They are too young to drink legally and, in many cases, too young to vote. But a new report, which is being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that one in five adolescent girls become the victims of physical or sexual violence, or both, in a romantic relationship. And the experience of such violence, the researchers found, is frequently associated with serious health problems, including drug abuse, unhealthy weight control practices, risky sexual behavior, teenage pregnancy and suicide attempts. Of the high school girls, ages 14 to 18, surveyed in the study, about 20 percent reported that they had been hit, slapped, shoved or forced into sexual activity by a dating partner. Dr. Jay Silverman, an assistant professor of health and social behavior at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of the report, called the numbers "extremely high." "Unfortunately," Silverman said, "the prevalence estimate is not surprising considering what we know about intimate partner violence with adult women." In a recent national survey, 25 percent of adult women reported being the victims of violence by a romantic partner. Commenting on Silverman's study, Esta Soler, executive director of the Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco, said: "Those are disturbingly high statistics for young women. Adolescence is such a hard developmental time anyway, and young girls feel so off balance in so many respects that to now learn that violence is such a factor in their lives is very disturbing." Soler said the study provided hard data to back up what those who work in the field of domestic violence had suspected. Silverman said the findings underscored the need for more prevention programs and services for both the victims and the perpetrators of adolescent abuse. The researchers analyzed responses to a single question about dating violence in both the 1997 and 1999 versions of the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey, part of a national assessment of public high school students, grades 9 through 12, in schools across the country. Students were asked if they had ever been hurt physically or sexually by a date. They responded by indicating, "No, I was not hurt by a date," "Yes, I was hurt physically," "Yes, I was hurt sexually" or "Yes, I was hurt physically and sexually." The survey, administered in randomly selected classrooms, also included questions about smoking, drinking, thinking about or attempting suicide, sexual intercourse, condom use, pregnancy and unhealthy eating behaviors like laxative abuse or self-induced vomiting. Of 1,977 high school girls who participated in the survey in 1997, 20.2 percent said they had been physically or sexually abused by a dating partner. In 1999, 18 percent of 2,186 girls said they had been the victims of physical or sexual violence. In both years, the majority of girls who reported sexual abuse said they also had been physically abused. The study is the most comprehensive to examine dating violence among adolescents, and the first to ask adolescents if they had ever been victims of violence in a dating situation. Previous studies have come up with similar statistics, though with smaller numbers of subjects and a more restricted focus. Silverman said he thought the most striking finding was the strong link between dating violence and risky behavior. For example, in the 1999 survey, being the victim of sexual violence by a dating partner was also associated with binge drinking; laxative use or vomiting to lose weight; not using a condom during sexual intercourse; having three or more sexual partners within the previous three months; and having been pregnant. Girls who had experienced both physical and sexual abuse were also more likely to report cocaine, nicotine and alcohol use; unhealthy weight-control practices; suicide attempts; pregnancy; and to say that they had first had sexual intercourse when they were younger than 15.
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From the Times wire desk
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