UK Teen 'Raped 90 Times in Two Days' by Trafficking Gang
A teenage girl was raped 90 times in 48 hours after being trafficked, according to a new report.
The schoolgirl and her friend - named Jess and Hannah (not their real names) - were groomed by a group of young men who bought them treats and paid them compliments.
But before long the pair were pressured into performing sex acts on the younger men - termed 'lover boys' - and then older men who they were supposedly friends with.
One weekend, the two girls were driven to a flat where they were instructed to have sex with any and all visitors. Over the course of two days, Hannah was raped by up to 90 men.
Her friend Jess was spared because she was menstruating at the time. She was told to sit on the other side of the door of the room in which Hannah was being repeatedly sexually abused, said the Centre for Social Justice in new report, entitled, It's Happening Here.
Neither girl was seen as vulnerable to sex abuse by the authorities because their backgrounds did not raise contain any wanring signs.
The shocking case study lifted the lid on the horror of human trafficking happening in Britain today. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) called for a radical overhaul of measures to tackle the problem.
An anti-slavery commissioner should be appointed and the UK Border Agency should lose its powers for ruling whether someone is a victim of trafficking, it said.
The think tank of which Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is the figurehead also criticised current arrangements which see seven different departments with some role in trafficking.
Criminal prosecution of trafficking for offences they commit while under the control of gangs is inappropriate and in need of reform, it claimed.
Christian Guy, Managing Director of the CSJ, said: "Our research has uncovered a shocking underworld in which children and adults, many of them UK citizens, have been forced into lives of utter degradation.
"Yet the authorities are either failing to understand the nature of this abuse or turning a blind eye to its existence."
Andrew Wallis, CEO of anti-human trafficking charity Unseen and Working Group Chairman of the CSJ report, said: "We simply cannot be satisfied with our current efforts to prevent this vile trade from happening.
"We have allowed human beings in the UK to be bought and sold as mere commodities for profit, gain or gratification. How on earth have we arrived at a place where there is no ambition or leadership to stamp out this appalling crime?"
Home Office minister Mark Harper defended the current system in place to combat the trade in human misery.
"The overall system we've set up is good," says the Immigration Minister Mark Harper.
"We'll continue to improve over time. This is a crime that tends to be hidden and we want to be sure people are more aware of it and that people are more effective in dealing with the victims of it and more effective in locking up the people engaged in this abhorrent crime."
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