Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,
London Mayor Sadiq Khan is facing renewed criticism after a majorBBC investigationfound that vulnerable girls as young as 14 are being lured into forced sex by gangs operating across the capital.
The investigation, based on weeks of reporting and interviews with dozens of people, including five survivors of gang-based violence, concluded that exploitation by organised groups is rife in parts of London.
Some victims told the BBC they were raped by multiple men as “payment” for unpaid drug debts run up by gangs that controlled them.Others said they had been groomed solely for sex. The investigation also found that girls were often drawn into criminal activity such as drug dealing, weapons trading, and phone theft before being sexually exploited.
One Metropolitan Police officer described young girls and women as the “lowest rung” within gang hierarchies, saying they were groomed and exploited “for everything.”
Public debate over grooming gangs in the U.K. has often focused on northern towns such as Rotherham and Rochdale. A government-commissioned report last year found that in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire, there was evidence of “disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation.”
Further investigations have found the same in other towns and cities, including Telford, Oxford, Derby, Birmingham, Halifax, Peterborough, and countless others.
Last year, Khan said there was no “indication of […] grooming gangs” of the type seen in Rotherham operating in London. Following the BBC findings, a spokesperson for the mayor said he wanted to support police to tackle “all child sexual exploitation in the capital, including grooming gangs.”
Survivors told the broadcaster how exploitation often targeted girls from broken homes or troubled backgrounds.
“I didn’t feel like I was groomed or exploited. I didn’t think I was a victim. It’s taken me a while to realise I was used and manipulated,”one victim told the BBC.
Source: ZeroHedge News
