CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1       Background to the Study
Over the last three decades, researchers, clinicians, and other health advocates have explored the incidence, prevalence, and consequences of sexual violence occurring within the context of domestically violent relationships, including adult marital and cohabiting relationships. Until recently, sexually based crimes occurring within adolescent acquaintance and dating relationships have gone largely unnoticed (Wordes& Nunez, 2002). In fact, most research, education, and preventative measures with adolescent populations have largely been related to sexual violence perpetrated by a parent or caregiver ( Stufflebeam, D. L. 2003). However, increased inquiry into rape and sexual assault among our nation's youth, such as the National Council on Crime and Delinquency's review of victimization of teenagers (Wordes& Nunez, 2002) and the U.S. Department of Justices' (USDOJ) evaluation of Sexual Victimization of College Women (Fisher, Cullen, and Turner, 2000), has focused attention on the nature and consequences of sexual violence occurring within our adolescent population. This attention has resulted in the inclusion of two Healthy People 2010 objectives that relate specifically to reducing rape, attempted rape, and sexual assault among children and adolescent in Nigeria.
The World Health Organization  (WHO), in the World Report on Violence and Health (Krug, Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi, & Lozano, 2002), defined sexual violence as: Any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a persons sexuality using coercion, by any person, regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work. Sexual violence may include attempted and/or completed rape, sexual coercion and harassment, sexual contact with force or threat of force, and threat of rape (Fisher, Cullen, and Turner, 2000; WHO, 2002). According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), adolescents are more likely to experience sexually violent crimes than any other age group (AAP, 2001). In fact, greater than half of all victims of sexual crimes, including rape and sexual assault, are women under the age of 25 years. The National Crime Victim Survey (2000) noted that adolescent females age 16-19 are four times more likely than the general population to report sexual assault, rape, and attempted rape. Often this violence occurs within the context of dating or acquaintance relationships, with the female partner the likely victim of violence and the male partner the likely perpetrator.  However, other forms of sexual violence occurring among our nations youth, including sexual violence in gay and lesbian relationships, sexual violence perpetrated as hate crimes, and sexual violence as a form of hazing, while not included in this review, should not be disregarded.
Sexual abuse experienced in childhood or adolescence is a developmental stressor that can have profound, long-term physiologic and psychosocial effects (Banyard, Williams, & Siegel, 2001; Cicchetti & Rogosch, 2001; DeBellis, 2001). It has been associated with a variety of health-compromising behaviours and health problems, often considered attempts to cope with the trauma engendered by the abuse (Barker & Musick, 1994; Finkelhor & Browne, 1985; Hutchinson & Langlykke, 1997).
Over the last decade, there has been a growing interest in the partnering of adolescent females with older adult males, often referred to as adult-teen sex (Donovan, 1997; Elstein& Davis, 1997; Harner, Burgess, & Asher, 2001; Lindberg, Sonenstein, Ku, and Martinez , 1997.) While most adult women do partner with slightly older males, application of this social norm to adolescent females has been linked to an increased risk for victimization, including physical and sexual violence. Furthermore, imbalances in power and control, financial resources, levels of life experience, and even physical strength and stature may place younger females partnered with adult males at risk for experiencing unplanned and unprotected sex, unwanted pregnancy, and exposure to sexually transmitted infections, including HIV and AIDS. While partnering with an older male may be considered consensual in nature to the female, her peers, and possibly her family, sexual relationships with significantly older males may meet the legal definition of statutory rape. As such, several teen advocacy and pregnancy prevention programs have called for increased utilization of existing statutory rape laws to aid in the prosecution and punishment of adult men who have sex with adolescent females (Harner, Burgess, & Asher, 2001).