DID YOU KNOW?

*1 in every 3 girls will be sexually molested before the age of 18
*1 in every 6 boys will be sexually molested before the age of 18
*Every 10 SECONDS a child is abused, raped or killed in the U.S.

NATIONAL STATISTICS:

*Since 1990, 10,000+ American children have died at the hands of their own parents or caretakers.
*Four children die every day in this country from child abuse and neglect.
* In 2000, over 3 million children were reported as abused or neglected in the United States.
* Eighty percent of violent juvenile and adult prisoners were raised in violent homes.
* The United States annually spends an estimated $258 million on foster care, incarceration and other societal costs because of the abuse and neglect of children. This amounts to $1,460 per family, per year. Despite these high costs, the federal government invested only $10 in prevention research for every case reported.
* Survivors of abuse are six times more likely to become abusive parents.
* One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age 18.
* Abused children are 25 times more likely to repeat a grade.
* Seventy-five percent of high school dropouts have a history of abuse in their families.
* Forty-five percent of abused children become adult alcoholics.

CHILD ABUSE FACTS:

• **The safest family environment for a child is a home in which the biological parents are still married.
  **Cohabitation, an increasingly common phenomenon, is a major factor in child abuse.
  **The incidence of child abuse decreases significantly as family income increases.
  **Child abuse frequently is inter generational.
  **Child abuse is prevalent in “communities of abuse” characterized by family breakdown.
  **Child abuse is directly associated with serious violent crime.
  **The safest environment for a child–that is, the family environment with the lowest risk ratio for physical abuse– one in which the biological parents are married and the family has always been intact.
  **The rate of abuse is six times higher in the second-safest environment: the blended family in which the divorced mother has remarried.
  **The rate of abuse is 14 times higher if the child is living with a biological mother who lives alone.
  **The rate of abuse is 20 times higher if the child is living with a biological father who lives alone.
  **The rate of abuse is 20 times higher if the child is living with biological parents who are not married but are cohabiting.
  **The rate of abuse is 33 times higher if the child is living with a mother who is cohabiting with another man.
  ** 1,500 children die from abuse each year. There are 140,000 injuries to children from abuse each year. There are 1.7 million reports of child abuse each year.
  ** 1 in 4 women in North America were molested in childhood.
  **More than 2 million cases of child abuse and neglect are reported each year in the United States. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 new cases of sexual abuse occur each year.
  **There were an estimated 903,000 victims of maltreatment nationwide.
  **An estimated 1,100 children died of abuse and neglect, a rate of approximately 1.6 **1 in 7 males will have been sexually molested before the age of 18.
  **10 deaths per 100,000 children per year in the general populations.
  **Each day in the United States, more than 3 children die as a result of child abuse in the home. Most of the children who die are younger than 5 years of age.
  **More children (age four and younger) die from child abuse and neglect than any other single, leading cause of death for infants and young children.
  **Child abuse is reported—on average—every 10 seconds.
  **Approximately 3 million child abuse reports are made each year.
  **Two-thirds of the reported cases were investigated. An estimated 903,000 victims of maltreatment were substantiated by child protective services agencies in 1998.
  **Nine in 10 Americans polled regard child abuse as a serious problem, yet only 1 in 3 reported abuse when confronted with an actual situation.
  **Convicted rape and sexual assault offenders serving time in State prisons report that two-thirds of their victims were under the age of 18.
  **Among rape victims less than 12 years of age, 90% of the children knew the offender, according to police-recorded incident data.
  **Frequently, the person who sexually molests a child is also a child.
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