Sexual violence link to homeless youth

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, about one in three homeless teens are lured into prostitution after only 48 hours on the street. About eighty-two percent trade sex for money, forty-eight percent trade sex for food, and about twenty-two percent trade sex for drugs.

Shannon Frey with the Somerset County Department of Health says, “It’s very sad. A lot of times they’re trying to get out of a household that they feel they’re in danger in, only to go to the streets. Sometimes they feel safer even though it’s not.”

Victimization of homeless youth isn’t limited to sexual violence. Rates of major depression, conduct disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder are three times higher among runaway youth.