I recently wrote a post about some statistics regarding adult women and domestic violence. The statistics were startling.  After that post I decided to find statistics regarding teens and Intimate Partner Violence.

Here’s what I found….

724 adolescent mothers between the ages of 12-18: one of every eight pregnant adolescents reported having been physically assaulted by the father of her baby during the preceding 12 months. Of these, 40 percent also reported experiencing violence at the hands of a family member or relative.

Girls who reported that they had been sexually or physically abused were more than twice as likely as non-abused girls to report smoking (26% versus 10%), drinking (22% versus 12%), and using illegal drugs (30% versus 13%). In addition, 32 percent of girls who had been abused reported bingeing and purging, compared to 12 percent of girls who had not been abused.

Physical aggression occurs in 1 in 3 teen dating relationships.

Fifty to eighty percent of teens report knowing someone involved in a violent relationship.

These and other statistics can be found at http://www.abanet.org/domviol/statistics.html.

We teach our teens sex and drug abuse education why not the signs of intimate partner violence and what to do about it? Perhaps if we did these terrible statistics would decrease.

Domestic Violence hurts us all!