10% of US Teen Girls Report Sexual Assault in Lifetime

TOPLINE:

Research showed children experienced varying rates of sexual harassment and sexual violence, with girls reporting higher rates of forced sexual intercourse (6.8%) than boys (3.3%).

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers analyzed data of 958,182 children and teens from 165 studies conducted in 80 countries worldwide, including the United States, Zambia, and Cambodia.
• The systematic review and meta-analysis included children and teens between ages 10 and 19 years; girls accounted for 58.2% of participants, and the sample sizes ranged from 330 to 132,948 people.
• Studies were included if they were national-level and population-based, included lifetime or past-year prevalence of sexual violence against children, and children’s own reports.
• Researchers examined several forms of sexual violence including forced sexual intercourse, sexual harassment, statutory rape, exposure to sexual activity, exposure to pornography, and contact sexual violence, which was defined as any involuntary touching by a perpetrator or being forced to touch a perpetrator in a sexual manner.

TAKEAWAY:

• The study results indicated sexual harassment — inappropriate sexual comments or advances made verbally — was the most prevalent form of abuse, with a rate of 11.4%, followed by contact or forced sexual violence at 8.7%, for boys and girls.
• Roughly 6% of children reported experiencing completed forced sexual intercourse in their lifetime (6.8% of girls, 3.3% of boys).
• Boys experienced higher rates of exposure to pornography (4.3%) and any contact sexual violence (6.3%) than girls (2.1% and 5.3%, respectively).
• Regional analysis showed higher prevalence of sexual abuse in low-income countries; the Democratic Republic of Congo had the highest reported rates of completed and/or attempted forced sexual intercourse against girls (18.2%) compared with Sweden (9.9%) and the United States (10.6%).
• School-based surveys and self-completed questionnaires typically reported higher prevalence rates than household surveys and interviews, especially among girls.

IN PRACTICE:

“Self-completed questionnaires in secure environments, like schools, may offer children a sense of confidentiality that encourages disclosure of sensitive experiences such as sexual violence,” study authors wrote. “In contrast, face-to-face interviews might lead to underreporting due to social desirability bias.”

SOURCE:

The study was led by Antonio Piolanti, PhD, of the Health Psychology Unit in the Institute of Psychology at the University of Klagenfurt in Klagenfurt, Austria. It was published online on January 13 in JAMA Pediatrics.

LIMITATIONS:

Despite more national surveys on child violence, data gaps remain, especially for boys and in certain regions. Self-reported data may be biased by memory recall. Some findings were based on a low number of studies.

DISCLOSURES:

Various study authors reported receiving the European Research Council Consolidator Grant and funding from Horizon Europe Research and Innovation and the Austrian Science Fund, outside the submitted work.

Researchers analyzed data of 958,182 children and teens from 165 studies conducted in 80 countries worldwide, including the United States, Zambia, and Cambodia.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.