The Secret Link Sexual Victimization Came First

She was 13. He was 16. She believed their sexual relationship to be "normal." She was pregnant by 15, a mother by 16.

Sandra's story is not unlike that of many teen mothers. But it is similar in yet another crucial aspect. Before she was sexually active at 13, she was sexually victimized, she says, at age 7 or 8.

She is not fully identified here because she was, essentially, Travel Health Insurance a sexual assault victim and because, even at 32, this is still difficult for her to talk about.

The link between sexual victimization and teen pregnancy is well-established. It points to one way forward as Milwaukee works to stem a tide that gives it the seventh-highest rate of births to teen mothers in the nation.

But, first, why the link works as it does. This is tied up with that word, "normal," what 13-year-old Sandra felt about her sexual relationship with her 16-year-old boyfriend.

Carmen M. Pitre, executive director of the Task Force on Family Violence of Milwaukee, explains it this way: "Early exposure to sex abuse is not only traumatic; it normalizes the behavior."

Children 5 or 6 years old who are sexually abused learn that other people have control of their bodies and that sex is how they can garner approval and, in their minds, "love." So, at 13, 14 or 15, they are predisposed, Pitre says, to succumb.

A cousin who was seven or eight years older abused Sandra. It was inappropriate touching, full body, fully clothed. It had, Sandra says, a damaging effect.

She kept the secret, confronting the cousin only recently. There was no outing at the time and no prosecution. But there was guilt and, when her body matured, there was also this notion that having sex at 13 with her boyfriend was "normal."

This sounds contradictory only until she tells what she has discovered about herself through failed relationships, in which she seemed to choose the same kind of men, and through therapy. "I always had this great need for affection by a male," she says.

Marriage at 16 and two children later, she was divorced at 21. At 32, she seemingly has put her life on a good track.

Her story is illustrative of this truism: When what is abnormal becomes normal, harm soon follows. But Sandra's story, while fitting a statistical profile for teen moms and their experience with sexual victimization, also differs.

The relationship that led to the pregnancy, was, in her 13-year-old mind, "consensual." That, of course, has limited utility when it comes to teens - as a practical matter and as a matter of law.

Consensual? Consider these statistics:

Juveniles accounted for 73% of Wisconsin's sexual assault victims in 2001, according to the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance. Anecdotally, the experts say teens as a significant portion of assault victims has not likely changed in 2008. Slightly more than 20% of sexual assault victims became pregnant as a result of the rape.

Nationally, 42% of sexually active girls younger than 15 say their first intercourse was nonconsensual, says a 1998 study. Girls who were sexually molested before they became pregnant? Estimates range from one-half to two-thirds.

Travel Health Insurance In Wisconsin, teen fathers account for 29% of babies born to teen mothers. Seventy-one percent of the fathers are older than 20 - in 20% of the cases, the males are at least six years older than the girl. So said a Wisconsin subcommittee on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention for the Department of Health and Family Services in 1998. Again, the experts say this hasn't changed much, if at all, 10 years later.

Had authorities, in Sandra's case, known that an 18-year-old man had impregnated a 15-year-old girl, it's extremely likely they would have pursued charges against the father. In fact, says Christopher A. Liegel, an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee County with the office's Sensitive Crimes Unit, a significant portion of their caseload is about adult males and teen girls. And in cases where pregnancy occurs, there is little difficulty successfully prosecuting these cases.

Liegel, who has been with the unit since 1999, sees a pattern. A "significant" number of the cases involve males 22 or older and girls 15 and younger. They come to the unit's attention often because a "mandatory reporter" - a teacher or nurse, for instance - found out about the relationship.

Sexual abuse previously among the pregnant teens he encounters is common, he says. And the girls perceive that they are in love with the older man who has impregnated them. The men, who often prey serially on teen girls, usually do not share the sentiment.

These girls fit the profile that Pitre of the Task Force on Family Violence offers. The previous abuse "makes them more vulnerable, and they don't have the structure to help them with their decision and the consequences," she says.

Sandra had a stable, nuclear family, and even then the abuse started the dominoes falling toward teen pregnancy. Now imagine, pregnant girls from low-income, single-parent families with stresses that middle- and high-income families cannot begin to imagine. The dominoes fall with heavier thuds.

But whether the family is low or upper income, not reporting the initial abuse is common, Pitre says.

Liegel bristles at the commonly stated notion that these teen moms are promiscuous tramps. In his experience, the victims of previous abuse are meek girls who have deluded themselves into thinking they are in love. It's love and attention that they crave likely because of that previous abuse, Pitre says.

Law enforcement has a role in battling teen pregnancy - as deterrence in the case of older males and young girls. But Liegel is first to admit that it also has its limits.

"By the time we get the case, Travel Health Insurance it (pregnancy) has happened. In a very real sense, it's too late," he says.

Pitre agrees. The question Milwaukee must answer, she says, is: "What can we do with our children and families on the front end?"

That is indeed the right question.Travel Health Insurance It means, in the schools, arming teens with the information that can prevent the risky behaviors that accompany and cause teen pregnancy. It means reproductive health education far more pervasively taught than it is now, particularly in Milwaukee Public Schools. And it means more programs like the Milwaukee Health Department's Plain Talk Initiative reaching more families. This involves teaching families how to talk to their youngsters about sex and consequences.

In other words, frank talk to kids and adults; law enforcement involvement where appropriate in the cases of older males and young girls; and whatever else can help build strong families - and strong girls and boys - in Milwaukee.

Yes, there is a link between sexual victimization and teen pregnancy, whose effects keep our cycle of poverty ever spinning. But, with the right approach and the proper funding, victimization need not be destiny.