400,666 US Girls Under Ten Are Forcibly Raped

A recently released report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals some sobering numbers: nearly 1 in 5 women have been raped in their lifetime. This statistic is widely known and almost universally accepted. But what do these numbers say about children?

According to the study, approximately 80% of female victims experienced their first rape before the age of 25 and almost half experienced the first rape before age 18 (30% between 11-17 years old and 12% at or before the age of 10).

When you crunch the numbers even more, you discover that approximately 400,666 girls under ten have experienced “completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.”

This translates into six girls in each and every elementary school in the United States.

In my town, with four elementary schools, that’s 24 girls.

Exactly who are these girls in your community? Who is responsible for these crimes? And who is serving these victims?

Here’s how I calculated these numbers. According to the CDC, “18.3% of women in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives, including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.” Of this 18.3%, 12% were raped “at or before the age of 10.” Doing the math, 12% of 18.3% is 2%. According to the United States Census, there are approximately 152,925,887 women in the United States. Of these, 6.7% are under 5 years old and 6.4% are 5 to 9 years old. Add 6.7% and 6.4% and you get 13.1% of the population are girls ages 0 to 9 – the target population. This translates to 20,033,291 girls ages 0 to 9 in the United States. If 2% of those 20 million girls experience rape, that’s 400,666 girls.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are 67,148 elementary schools in the United States. 400,666 girls divided by 67,148 elementary schools equals 6 girls per elementary school who experience “forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration” before their tenth birthday.

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