Thousands of girls, some as young as eight, are living lives in which rape is a weapon used against them, and carrying drugs and guns is regarded as normal, says a report probing the lives of girls in British gangs from a UK think tank, Centre for Social Justice, CSJ, and a London youth charity, XLP. Trapped in a life of violence and exploitation, these girls are largely off the radar, in part due to police indifference. The scale of the problem is not readily apparent, other than that it is significant and lives are being destroyed.
The investigation, which focuses on how gang life impacts girls and young women, builds on previous CSJ work which reveals how some communities have been devastated by gang activity. Shockingly, researchers heard how female gang members in their teens are being pressured to have sex with young boys – some as young as 10 – to initiate the young boys into gangs.
In one case, a schoolgirl was abducted and sexually assaulted by nine males because she criticised a gang member.
Rape is used as a weapon and girls and young women associated with rival gangs are targets. One charity told the CSJ about a practice known as a ‘line up’, where young females are made to perform sexual acts on groups of men.
Despite a UK Home Office-led strategy against gang culture which was launched in 2011 after the London riots, little has changed, according to the report. In some schools, problems have been exacerbated because headteachers have turned a blind eye toward gang activity to protect their school’s reputation.
“We are often unsighted about the desperate lives of girls embroiled in gangs,” said Edward Boyd, CSJ Deputy Policy Director and editor of the report. “While the media regularly shines a spotlight on the criminality of male members, the daily suffering of girls goes largely unnoticed. They live in a parallel world where rape is used as a weapon and carrying drugs and guns is seen as normal.”
One recent report states that almost 2,500 children are known to be victims of child sexual exploitation by gangs and groups – but it is widely agreed this number is a low estimate.
Bedfordshire University asked 96 young people connected with gangs what factors they identified as being part of gang life. Half identified examples of ‘sex in exchange for (perceived) status or protection’; 34 per cent identified examples of ‘multiple perpetrator rape’; 39 per cent identified examples of ‘sex in exchange for other tangible goods’.
Girls and young women are also frequently used to stash weapons and to work as drug mules because they are less likely to be stopped and searched by police. For example, in London last year, only 6 per cent of stop-and-searches were conducted on females. During 2011/12, it was 5 per cent in Manchester and 3 per cent in Merseyside.
Two leading charities described how young women have used baby buggies to carry weapons and how schoolgirls as young as eight are being used to conceal drugs.
Involvement in gang culture has a detrimental impact on the educational achievement of girls and young women, the Girls and Gangs report adds. Recent evidence has shown girls in gangs to be over three times more likely to be under-performing at school compared to other girls entering the youth justice system.
Asked why some girls were so keen to get involved with gangs, one headteacher told the study: “We can’t compete with the attraction of fast cars, sex and drugs.”
The CSJ report said the UK government was right in 2011 in stating that authorities did not know enough about the girls and young women associated with gangs, but that three years later too little progress has been made.
Patrick Regan, CEO of XLP, says: “The biggest issue with girls in gangs is that we simply don’t know the full extent of the problem. The data we have is merely the tip of the iceberg and at XLP there is no doubt that we see increasing numbers of girls dragged into this appalling world of exploitation, criminality and hopelessness.”
The report calls on the government to act with urgency to map the problem of these girls and young women and their gang involvement so that opportunities to intervene are easier to identify.
XLP wants youth workers embedded in major trauma units in gang-infested areas. The CSJ points to the success of King’s College Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital who have instigated similar projects with great success.
In a general sense, the police should team-up with voluntary organisations to ensure that when male gang members are arrested and imprisoned, their girlfriends get the necessary support to exit the gang lifestyle posthaste.
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