Girls in gangs leading desperate lives, says report
Girls in gangs are leading “desperate lives” in which “rape is used as a weapon and carrying drugs and guns is seen as normal”, a think tank has said.
The Centre for Social Justice said the “daily suffering” of thousands of women and girls “goes largely unnoticed”.
Girls as young as eight are being used to carry drugs, it added.
The CSJ called for youth workers to be embedded in hospital trauma units to identify victims, and for more support to be given to help girls leave gangs.
The CSJ - a right-leaning think tank established by current cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith when he was Conservative Party leader - carried out the research with the London youth charity XLP, speaking to current and former gang members, voluntary organisations and government agencies.
Researchers producing the Girls and Gangs report heard that:
- Female gang members in their teens are being pressured to have sex with boys as young as 10 to initiate males into gangs
- In one case a schoolgirl was abducted and sexually assaulted by nine males because she criticised a gang member
- Young women associated with rival gangs are targets, in some cases forced to take part in a “line up”, where they are made to perform sexual acts on several men in a row
- Girls and young women are frequently used to hide weapons and drugs - sometimes in pushchairs - because they are less likely to be stopped and searched by police
Involvement in gang culture has a detrimental impact on the education of girls and young women, researchers said, suggesting that some schools had turned a blind eye to gang activity in order to protect their reputations. [Rest.]
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