51% of Rape Victims Are Girls Under 18, Justice Department Reports

Girls younger than 18 are victims of more than half the rapes reported to police, and the younger the victim, the more likely the attacker is a relative or acquaintance, the Justice Department reported Wednesday.

Girls younger than 12 are the victims in 16% of reported rapes, according to the estimates from the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. One in five victims younger than 12 is raped by her father.

The statistics bureau, using police reports from 11 states and the District of Columbia, said girls younger than 18 were the victims in 51% of rapes in 1992, even though girls of that age made up only 25% of the female population.

In separate data from 1991, the bureau said family members or acquaintances accounted for 96% of rapes of girls younger than 12 in a three-state survey and for 94% in a survey of state inmates convicted of rape. The percentage of rapes by strangers increases as the age of the victims increases, which experts said reflects the more sheltered lives of younger females.