Dating violence occurs everyday. In small towns and big cities. It canaffect our friends and family, more often than we know. Affecting youngwomen everywhere, it is most common in high school and college.The three main types of abuse are physical, emotional, and sexual. Datingabuse occurs especially against women. A study conducted among 304 highschool students revealed that 20% of young women have experienced at leastone form of dating violence, and 60% of the teenagers said that they hadeither witnessed or heard of incidents.Physical abuse may involve punching, kicking, slapping, pushing, choking,burning, or other actions that would cause physical pain. This abuse ismuch easier to identify since the signs are visible to others. Emotionalabuse is sometimes much more damaging than physical abuse. Several studiessay that women abused emotionally and physically have said the emotional

battering was the worst abuse they experienced. Emotional abuse can involvethreatening, terrorizing, insulting, or inducing fear. Verbal Abuse is alsoconnected with emotional abuse. This can occur in a dating relationship, aswell as a parent- child relationship. Many emotional abusers isolate theirpartner from people who know them well.Sexual abuse, also known as "date rape" is very common. Here is a shockingfact: 1 out of every 4 women are either victims of rape or attempted rape.Date rape is the most common form of rape, and only 10% of date rape isreported. Studies show that 84% of women know their attackers, and 54% saythey were raped while on a date. Another scary thought is the new drugRohypnol, otherwise referred to as "Roofies" is a drug that can be slippedinto a drink, and within minutes a person has no control over what they aredoing. The drug causes memory loss, which makes it harder for cases to besolved, if they are reported. Rape is a crime of violence, not love. It isabout control, not compassion. It is against the law.Dating violence happens to our friends, daughters, sisters and so manyothers.