Research reveals scale of abuse in teen relationships

[IwantToRetire]

The equivalent of one teenage child in every classroom has experienced physical or sexual abuse in a relationship in the past year, according to a poll.

Some 15% of the 13- to 17-year-olds who reported being in a relationship in the last year, said they had experienced behaviours including being forced or pressured into sex, being physically hurt or having explicit images shared without consent.

This represents around 4% of all teenage children in England and Wales, or roughly one in every 25 teenagers or every typical classroom, according to violence prevention charity Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), which surveyed nearly 11,000 young people in this age group.

The research is published in the second report in its four-part series Children, Violence and Vulnerability, with the first report highlighting the scale of violent material encountered by young people online and elsewhere.

From https://www.cypnow.co.uk/content/news/research-reveals-scale-of-abuse-in-teen-relationships and at https://archive.is/j1bnL

Cant work out which report article is based on but presume the second of these links?

• https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/reports/children-violence-and-vulnerability-2025/
• https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/reports/children-violence-and-vulnerability-2025/violence-in-relationships/

This is really nothing new. I was assaulted age 15 by two boys from the local boys school back in the 80s. Of course I said nothing and didn't report them, you knew not to back then. That's all that has - hopefully - changed.

I'm sorry to hear that happened to you, RogueFemale

I think the research is about abuse between young people who are in relationships with each other, not in general. I think it is strange that 13-17 year olds define themselves as 'being in relationships' rather than the boyfriend/girlfriend 'going out with' kind of churn that used to be more typical.

It's likely that lot of these relationships include sex in one form or another, whether actual, or sexting, even at the lower age range.

I remember reading some research from several years ago - I'll try to find it - which revealed that boys around that age who are 'in relationships' considered themselves justified in using physical violence against their girlfriends, for instance if they thought they were seeing other boys.

It seems that when young people describe themselves as 'being in a relationship', it includes some of the very negative aspects of 'relationships', like abuse and violence.

The stats in the CYP Now article do not separate out boys' and girls' experience, except at one point in the text. Perhaps the other two links provided by the OP break down the data by sex, so I'll have a look at those. Thank you for posting, OP.

As a healthcare professional working with families across a range of demographics this does not surprise me in the slightest, almost all of the DV cases I come across involve teenagers or if history of DV disclosed it was inevitably when they were teenagers/young. I don’t think it’s just a case of older women hiding it better at all, they’re just less easily manipulated than the poor young girls. Is very sad really, especially for these young girls families, their mum can usually see all the red flags their daughter’s refuse to see until it’s too late, It’s totally heartbreaking for them to see their daughters going through it

I am sorry to hear this and hope you have got support even if later in life.

I think this report is referring to the change in young peoples lives, via social media (and trash tv). When I was growing no one of that age would be "in a relationship" but it seems to have become part of a life style many young people seem pressured into.

And sadly thanks to incel culture and possibly what they see at home young men, well boys actually assume their right to be violent. And young women, girls accept it.

Which isn't to say in addition to that girls in school are subject to sexual assault, and the stories that have been in news papers that girls are enticed to meet a boy at some isolated spot, where in fact a group of boys are waiting to rape her.

This doesn't mean I dont think that in the past, pre mobiles phones and the internet sexual violence by boys wasn't happening. But for many girls today they are being condition to belief it is normal.

@IwantToRetire I'd be interested to hear from mums on here as to whether their children age 13-17 are in so-called relationships. Like you, in the old days you might be keen on someone, but nothing one could describe as a relationship, not that young.

I gather that many teenagers (and younger) now look at pornography, and show it to others at school on their phones, and that 'sexual' choking is now almost the norm.

I'm actually grateful all I had was a forced fingering in a park by two boys, and that was the end of it. No choking, no photos of it on social media seen by the whole school.

DD was talked with girls in her form at school, one of which said her boyfriend raped her and the other that she only put up with sex because it was better to be in a relationship than not. They were only 15 and it was about 15 years ago.

I was really shocked at the time, because I thought girls were better informed these days with sex education and all that, and this is the sort of thing I knew about from my mother, who was a social worker. Anyway, I now know I was hugely naive.

15% of 13-17 year olds. Does the study break that down because I suspect girls are most of that stat so it’s likely to be something like 25-30% of 13-17 year old girls

This is nothing new unfortunately. Men abusing women has been the norm. It is only going to get worse as we're now having generations of boys with access to hardcore pornography from preteen years.