Sexual Violence Against Adolescent Girls: Labeling It to Avoid Normalization
Publication: Journal of Women's Health
Volume 26, Issue Number 11
Abstract
Violence against women is a pervasive complex phenomenon that destroys women's feelings of love, trust, and self-esteem. In this commentary, we specifically focus on sexual violence against adolescent girls, whose impact is particularly harmful since it may lead to impaired mental health, social functioning, and neurodevelopment. Between 12% and 25% of adolescent girls throughout the world experience sexual violence, very often perpetrated by a family member or a friend. Moreover, for an alarming proportion of girls, the first sexual experience is coerced. In this article, we review the multiple negative effects of sexual violence against adolescent girls. We also report data derived from our practice in a public Italian referral Centre for Sexual and Domestic Violence (SVSeD) and address the importance of a multidisciplinary clinical approach with adolescent victims of sexual violence.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Women's Health
Volume 26 • Issue Number 11 • November 2017
Pages: 1146 - 1149
PubMed: 28318356
Copyright
Copyright 2017, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
History
Published in print: November 2017
Published online: 1 November 2017
Published ahead of print: 20 March 2017
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Authors
Author Disclosure Statement
The authors report no conflicts of interest. No financial support or funding was received for this article. G.B., F.C., and A.K. conceived the article; G.B. and F.C. wrote the manuscript. A.K., C.C., P.V., L.C., and F.F. critically reviewed and commented the article. All authors approved the content of the article.
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