The recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found an unprecedented wave of grief and sadness among teenage girls uncovered a stunning statistic: In 2021, nearly 20 percent said they had been victims of violent sexual behavior. More than one in 10 had been raped, they said.
While women of all ages have long endured a disproportionate number of sex assaults compared to men, a closer look at the CDC data reveals that the number of young girls forced into sex grew by nearly 200,000 in just two years.
The CDC's Youth Risk Behavior survey is given to more than 17,000 U.S. high school students every other year. Based on the responses in 2019, an estimated 850,000 high school girls reported that they’d been raped. By 2021, that estimate soared to more than 1 million.
The agency’s chief medical officer, Dr. Debra Houry, said she was disheartened by the steep rise, but not surprised.
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“Sexual violence has been a pervasive problem among girls for quite some time,” Houry said. “We aren’t making the progress we need to.”
The percentage of boys reporting they’d been raped 2021 has remained the same — 4 percent — since 2011.
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