Education and Skills

US teen girls at risk in dating violence, study says

Young girls look at their phones as they sit on a hillside after sun set in El Paso, Texas, U.S., June 20, 2018.        REUTERS/Mike Blake - RC182A561FE0

One in four U.S. teenage girls killed in a homicide is slain by her dating partner. Image: REUTERS/Mike Blake

Kate Ryan
Writer, Reuters
Share:
Our Impact
What's the World Economic Forum doing to accelerate action on Education and Skills?
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Education is affecting economies, industries and global issues
A hand holding a looking glass by a lake
Crowdsource Innovation
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:

Education

One in four U.S. teenage girls killed in a homicide is slain by her dating partner, research showed on Monday, exposing details about the "taboo" issue of dating violence among young people.

Teen and adolescent girls are often embarrassed or reluctant to talk about violence, while some schools and parents resist teaching about violent relationships, experts said.

Nine out of 10 teens and adolescents killed by a dating partner are girls, and nine out of 10 of the killers are boys and men, said researchers at the University of Washington. Their report was published in the JAMA Pediatrics medical journal.

"When they are experiencing things they recognize as unhealthy, they're not likely to disclose to adults in their lives," said lead author Avanti Adhia, a senior fellow at the university's medical school.

"By the time kids get to college, it's too late to start teaching about this," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The research studied more than 2,000 U.S. homicides of children ages 11 to 18.

It found one-quarter of slain girls were killed by an intimate partner.

A previous study in 2017 by the National Institute of Justice, a U.S. government research agency, found more than two thirds of teens said they had been in a violent intimate relationship in the previous year.

Have you read?

"There's something so taboo about the topic," said Bersheva Delgado, a community liaison at The Healing Center, a New York non-profit group that works with abuse survivors.

While some U.S. states allow minors to file legal orders of protection designed to keep abusers away, others require an adult to be present or parental notification that can deter teens from reporting violence, Adhia said.

Most of the female victims were 17 or 18 and their partners typically four years older, the research found.

About two-thirds of the deaths involved guns.

More than one in four deaths were fueled by jealousy, a break-up or resisting a relationship, Adhia said.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Related topics:
Education and SkillsEquity, Diversity and InclusionResilience, Peace and Security
Share:
World Economic Forum logo
Global Agenda

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

World University Rankings 2025: Elite universities go increasingly global

Phil Baty

October 10, 2024

About us

Engage with us

  • Sign in
  • Partner with us
  • Become a member
  • Sign up for our press releases
  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Contact us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2024 World Economic Forum