Rejection or victimization by peers may become a source of significant stress to children, contributing to feelings of loneliness and low self-esteem.
Children need to be warned about the potential dangers online and about sexual victimization.
Girl gang members experience more long-term, harmful effects from gang membership than their male counterparts, and some research finds that "gang membership itself opened up young women to additional victimization risk."
The private, nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) was established in cooperation with the United States Department of Justice, to find missing children and prevent child victimization.
Among sixth-grade students, rates of bullying rose from 10.5 percent in 1999 to 14.3 percent in 2001; among eighth-grade students victimization by bullies went from 5.5 percent in 1999 to 9.2 percent in 2001.
