Teenage girls lured into forced sex by gangs in London, BBC finds

Even the BBC has to admit it now. This report is mixed with ‘white’ sex offenders, and County Lines drug dealers who like to make money with sex and prostitution on the side. No one has ever said that this isn’t happening or that it isn’t a heinous and vile crime against children.  There’s a PC solicitor saying all the right things about ethnicity.  But right in the middle is a girl testifying about an ‘Asian’ gang who enticed and raped her in the classic ‘Rotherham’ MO. 

Vulnerable women and girls as young as 14 are being lured into a world of forced sex by gangs in London, evidence uncovered by the BBC has found.

Some told us they had been raped by several men as “payment” for unpaid drug debts run up by the gangs that controlled them, while others said they had been groomed just for sex.

Our evidence – based on interviews with dozens of people in the capital over several weeks, including five survivors of gang-based violence – also shows how girls are often lured by groups of men into dealing drugs, trading weapons and stealing phones.

One police officer in London said young girls and women were the “lowest rung” in gangs and were groomed and exploited “for everything”.

Last year, Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan said there was no “indication of […] grooming gangs” – of the type seen in Rotherham and other towns – operating in the capital. However, a spokesperson for Sir Sadiq recently told the BBC he wanted to support police to do everything possible to tackle “all child sexual exploitation in the capital, including grooming gangs”.

Milly, not her real name, told the BBC her experience of grooming gangs in London did not involve selling drugs and mirrored what had happened in towns and cities such as Rotherham, Rochdale and Oldham.

“I was 15. I was getting passed around different men every night – sometimes 10 or 15 a month,” she said.

“They just give us drink, give us drugs. Next thing I know, I’d just be in the bedroom with one of them. Then I’d come out. Could be another one. After that it could be another one. Sometimes it was only one. Sometimes it could be three. And then we’d just leave really.”

She said, even though it had happened a few years ago, she couldn’t recall many of the details because she had been so intoxicated at the time.

“I don’t remember their names really. It sounds horrible, but I just know they were [South] Asian.

Sometimes they just said, ‘Oh, you’re a nice, young white girl’.”

Another London survivor, whom we are calling Ruth, said she was also exploited for sex.

“They didn’t want anything but sex. I was low and they gave me expensive things so I felt wanted and then slept with them. It felt like I had multiple boyfriends giving me attention. They were South Asian men – they took advantage of my situation.

“It’s happening in London,” she added. “And those who don’t believe it need to look again.”