I’m impressed by this report on teen pregnancy by the Center for American Progress. “Umbrella” progressive organizations/blogs/foundations so often ignore what they call “women’s issues.”

In fact, I’ve personally had semi-prominent “progressive” people tell me that SAFER didn’t qualify as a progressive organization, because we focus on sexual violence, and that’s a “women’s issue.”

This has massively negative funding implications for progressive organizations working on any issue that the powers that be deem a “women’s issue,” by the way.

But back to the people doing it right.

Teen pregnancy is generally covered quite poorly in the media. On the right, we have anti-choicers who blame the problem on promiscuity, and say that shaming young women out of having sex is the best policy. On the left, we have a more sane, but ultimately incomplete, call for comprehensive sex education and access to contraception and abortion.

The Center for American Progress gives us a much fuller picture of the problem, noting that teen pregnancy is often a reflection of the high rates of sexual violence toward young women, and that these rates of violence are much higher for young women of color.

Teen pregnancy isn’t simply about girls and boys being promiscuous, or lacking access to sex education or contraception. Too often teen pregnancy is about girls losing agency over their bodies because of the unbearable injuries of being sexually violated.

Underneath the discourse about the educational strategies needed to prevent teen pregnancy lies a much harder and complex issue: Violence in girls’ lives leaves them at risk for teen pregnancy—especially for girls of color.

A significant correlation exists between childhood sexual abuse and teen pregnancy. An estimated 60 percent of teen girls’ first pregnancies are preceded by experiences of molestation, rape, or attempted rape. In one study, between 30 and 44 percent of teen mothers were victims of rape or attempted rape, and up to 20 percent of girls were pregnant as the direct result of rape.

The Harvard School of Public Health’s exhaustive research on the lives of girls demonstrates that girls who are victims of violence from dating partners are four to six times more likely than non-abused girls to become pregnant, and eight to nine times more likely to attempt suicide.

Other research findings compare sexually abused pregnant teens to pregnant teens who have not suffered sexual abuse. The sexually abused girls initiated intercourse a year earlier than their peers and engaged in a wide variety of high-risk behaviors, including substance abuse. The average age of first intercourse for abused girls is 13.8, in contrast to the national average of 16.2. Only 28 percent of the abused girls used birth control at first intercourse, compared to 74 percent of girls in the general population.

Sexual violence is especially pervasive in the lives of girls of color. An unfortunate, historical narrative oversexualizes black and brown girls. Even today this narrative renders girls’ bodies more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and devaluation. Approximately 40 percent of black women report coercive sexual contact by the time they turn 18. Native Americans are victims of rape or sexual assault at more than double the rate of other racial groups—and are more likely to be victimized by non-Native American perpetrators.

Sexual violence can play different roles in teen pregnancy. Many girls become pregnant because of coerced intercourse. Other abused teen girls become pregnant because girls subjected to sexual violence typically lose a sense of control over their bodies and often descend into a “disembodied self.” Unintended pregnancy can be the manifestation of sexually violated girls’ loss of connection to and agency over their physical selves.

It should be obvious, but addressing the issue of unwanted pregnancies will require addressing the issue of sexual violence, and the specific ways that racism functions in various communities to make young women of color more vulnerable to violence. It is essential that we develop prevention programs that work to address the intersections of violent masculinity and racism (both institutional and personal) that foster men’s sexual violence against young women of color.