CHICAGO - A SURPRISING number of young teens in the United States are in physically and emotionally abusive dating relationships, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Dating relationships and dating abuse can begin as early as age 11, underscoring the need for early education on the subject, the survey found.

'The extent of verbal and emotional abuse in early dating is much higher than we had anticipated,' said Dr Elizabeth Miller of the University of California Davis, who took part in a news briefing in Washington announcing the findings.

The online survey, commissioned by Liz Claiborne Inc, included 1,043 so-called 'tweens,' those aged 11-14; 523 parents of tweens; and 626 teens aged 15-18.

It found that one in five 13- to 14-year-olds say they know someone their age who has been physically abused, and nearly half know someone who has been verbally abused in a relationship.

The data also suggest that sex in these early relationships increases the risk of abuse. Of teens who had sex by age 14, 33 per cent said they had been kicked, punched, choked, slapped or hit, and 58 per cent said they had been verbally abused.

That compared to about 10 per cent of all teens aged 15-18 who were physically abused by a partner, and 29 per cent who had been verbally abused, the survey found.

'There is definitely something in the data that suggest to us early onset of sexual activity is not a good thing, that it is clearly associated with dating violence,'Dr Miller said in a telephone interview.

College violence
The findings dovetail with research by Dr Christine Forke of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia published this week in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.

Dr Forke found emotional violence - which includes verbal abuse and subjecting a partner to controlling behavior and put-downs - was the most common type of violence at all ages, especially before college. She surveyed students at three urban colleges and found nearly 45 per cent had experienced relationship violence before or during college.

The risk of emotional violence is that it can predispose victims to other forms of violence, Dr Forke said by telephone.

Dr Miller said few dating violence prevention efforts address young teens, and the new data underscore the need to aim prevention messages at a younger audience.

She said about half of all 11 to 14-year-olds surveyed did not know the warning signs of a bad dating relationship.

'It's the kinds of behaviours that can start out with something as simple as wanting to know who you are going to hang with this Friday,' Dr Miller said. 'But it can escalate to controlling what their partner wears, whether they go to school or whether they get pregnant or not.'

That is about how it started for Sami Hightshoe of Mount Carmel, Illinois, who was in a physically and sexually abusive relationship at age 14.

'He told me what to wear, who I could hang out with. He checked my phone messages,' said Ms Hightshoe, now 16.

'It turned into sexually abusing me. I didn't tell my parents. He said if I told them they wouldn't love me any more and I wouldn't have any friends,' she said by telephone.

Ms Hightshoe told her parents during summer holidays, when she was apart from the boyfriend. 'They told me they loved me unconditionally. Everything he told me was a lie,' she said. -- REUTERS