Fifty-seven percent of teens know someone who has been verbally, physically, or sexually abusive in a relationship. A comparison of Intimate Partner Violence rates between teens and adults reveals that teens are at a higher risk of intimate partner abuse, at a rate of almost triple the national average.

South Carolina holds one of the worst domestic violence rates in the nation. The state continually ranks within the top 10 for domestic violence and has been first twice since 1998, but a new bill for the state legislature seeks to reduce the overall numbers.

The legislature is currently debating the new bill. The bill seeks to curb dating abuse among teens by providing resources to educate teens on abusive behavior.

“Awareness is so important if we’re going to break this insidious cycle of abuse,” says Representative Joan Brady.

The bill requires school districts to adopt dating violence policies and discipline guidelines in grades six through 12. With 54 percent of parents admitting they’ve never spoken to their child about dating violence, the new measures may bring awareness to this growing problem.

Brady says she wanted the bill to incorporate dating violence prevention in students’ health curriculum, but teacher training would cost money that the South Carolina doesn’t have.

The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence defines teen dating violence as a pattern of actual or threatened acts of physical, sexual, verbal and/or emotional abuse, perpetrated by an adolescent against a current or former dating partner. The abusive teen uses this pattern of violent and coercive behavior in order to gain power and maintain control over the dating partner. While the bill itself is not controversial, an amendment seeks to define a couple as only a man and woman.

In the National Teen Dating Prevention Initiative, a study of gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents, youths involved in same-sex dating relationships are just as likely to experience dating violence as youths involved in opposite-sex dating.

Gay rights advocates protested the exclusion of gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships in the bill. They believe that it further discriminates against students who already are open to bullying and self-doubt.

The attempt to remove the bill’s definition of dating partner failed in a senate committee vote 3-2.