Updated (U.S. Data: 2024–2026 context)In the United States, the number of girls who experience abuse is not small. It is not rare. I
Updated (U.S. Data: 2024–2026 context)
In the United States, the number of girls who experience abuse is not small. It is not rare. It is not isolated.
It is widespread.
And it demands honesty.
What the data shows
- 1 in 4 girls experience some form of sexual abuse before age 18
(CDC, Darkness to Light, and multiple national studies)
In 2021, child protective services received 3.9 million reports involving 7.2 million children
(U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)
- Girls are the majority of sexual abuse victims, with estimates showing up to 90% of reported cases involving female victims
- Risk is not evenly distributed
- Girls in low-income communities face higher exposure due to systemic inequities
- Girls with disabilities face increased risk due to:
- dependence on caregivers
- communication barriers
- being dismissed or not believed
- social isolation
This is not a misunderstanding.
This is a pattern.
What Happens to Girls—Across Cultures and Systems
Across the world and across time, girls are often told—directly or indirectly—that their safety comes second.
They are expected to endure things that should never be normalized:
- Being unsafe in their own homes, schools, and communities
- Being shamed for natural bodily processes like menstruation
- Being denied birth, education, or autonomy simply for being female
- Being pressured or forced into relationships or marriages they did not choose
- Being scrutinized, monitored, and judged for their bodies from childhood onward
- Being silenced when they speak plainly about what they are experiencing
- Having their bodies altered without consent
- Being blamed for abuse, grooming, or violence committed against them
This is not culture.
This is not tradition.
This is harm.
A Line That Must Be Drawn
If someone is not actively protecting girls, listening to them, and taking their safety seriously—then we are not aligned.
That is not hostility. That is clarity.
What We Refuse to Accept for Children
No child should be expected to:
- Undress in front of people they do not feel safe around
- Ignore their own discomfort to make others comfortable
- Take on unnecessary physical risk
- Stay silent to protect adults or systems
- Lie about what they feel or what they see
- Go against their deeply held beliefs to avoid conflict
- Accept that no safe adult will help them
- When a child says something feels wrong, that is not the moment to debate.
That is the moment to listen.
What Children Deserve Instead
Children deserve:
To speak truthfully without fear of punishment or dismissal
To have their instincts taken seriously
To be heard by adults who are:
- safe
- thoughtful
- emotionally steady
- capable of discernment
Not adults who rush to minimize.
Not adults who protect appearances.
Not adults who silence discomfort to keep things “smooth.”
A Necessary Reminder
As Dr. Diane Langberg teaches:
“When you feel overwhelmed in exposing truth, remember this: people are sacred, created in the image of God. Systems are not.
They are only worth the people in them and the people they serve.”
Systems do not deserve protection. Children do.
Where This Leaves Us
You cannot protect children in theory.
You protect them in practice.
In how you respond when they speak
In what you allow
In what you question
In what you refuse
And especially—
in whether you are willing to stand with them when it is inconvenient, unpopular, or uncomfortable
Say It Plain
I am on the side of children. All of them. At once.
If that is not the position someone is taking in real, tangible ways—
then we are not working toward the same outcome.
If you are not actually protecting little girls, we are not in fact on the same side.
All over the globe since the beginning of time, little girls are pushed aside and told that it is not their turn to:
- be safe from abuse in their own communities, schools, and homes
- have their periods without being shunned or shamed
- be born because they are not boys
- grow up to be adults and then choose their own husbands
- have people around them micromanage the shape and weight of their bodies from middle school and well beyond middle age
- speak the truth as they see it and as they live it.
- keep their God-given body parts intact without having them cut without even a pain killer (female genital mutilation)
- avoid being blamed for violence, abuse, and grooming at the hands of predatory males.
Children MUST be allowed to speak truthfully, have their safety taken seriously, and have their concerns and gut feelings heard without immediately being dismissed as “hate” or “something we do not say.”
Normies across the US: Let’s protect girls by keeping their sports and locker rooms single-sex.@TheDemocrats having a normal one:
Genital inspections!
Taliban!Sexual assault!
Little girls’ underwear!!
(excluding 2 Texas Dems Gonzalez & Cuellar 🙏 for voting for girls) pic.twitter.com/qyri84irPj
— WomenAreReal (@WomenAreReals) January 14, 2025