www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Gang-associated sexual
exploitation and sexual violence
Fiona Factor
Institute of Applied Social Research
University of Bedfordshire
16.09.13
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and
Groups (CSEGG)
• October 2011 - The Children's Commissioner set up a
two year inquiry
• Phase 1 of the inquiry is now complete. The report in
November 2012 indicated that professionals need to:
– be more aware of the indicators
– be better able to identify young women at risk of exploitation
– adjust their service provision to create conditions where girls are
safely able to disclose information.
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
UoB Research
Funded by Office of Children’s Commissioner for England running
alongside Inquiry
• Gang-associated sexual violence and exploitation (SVE)
– Scale and nature
– Routes in
– Potential responses
• In-depth study in 6 research sites (anonymised)
• Multi-method approach
– Direct engagement with 190 young people:150 individual interviews
& focus groups with 40;
– Focus groups with 70 professionals;
– Lit/policy/secondary data.
• Interim report November 12;
• Final report November 13
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Ending Gang and Youth Violence Report
- Nov 2011
• Gang strategies focus on male gang perpetrators and
victims
• Little hard data on women and girls affected by gang
violence
• Involvement in criminal activity and subject to sexual
exploitation
• Need to establish Women, Girls and Gangs working
group
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Serious youth violence and girls
• Serious youth and gang-related violence against children is a
safeguarding and child protection issue.
• The role of the Safeguarding Children Boards is key to getting
partnership commitment to the development of local strategies.
• YOTs should work with local partners to:
– identify young women at risk of serious youth violence
– provide an environment where young women are able to safely
disclose information
– ensure local services are able to respond to identified risks and
needs in a way that ensures the safety of young women and
girls.
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Definitions
GANG:
• A relatively durable, predominantly street-based
group of young people who (1) see themselves
(and are seen by others) as a discernible group,
(2) engage in a range of criminal activity and
violence, (3) identify with or lay claim over
territory, (4) have some form of identifying
structural feature, and (5) are in conflict with
other, similar, gangs’
(Pitts 2008; Centre for Social Justice 2009)
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Definition of SVE
• Sexual exploitation: exploitative situations, contexts and
relationships where a young person (or a third person)
receives ‘something’ in return for involvement in some
form of sexual activity (DSCF 2009).
• Sexual violence: incorporates any behaviour that is
perceived to be of a sexual nature, which is unwanted or
takes place without consent or understanding (NIO
2008).
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Individual interviews
• 48% female; 52% male
• 13-28 years of age: half under 18
•
•
•
•
13 to 15 = 21%,
16 and 17 = 28% (49% children),
18 to 20 =28%
21-25 =21%
• 45% in education; 20% in training; 18% in employment; 15%
NEET; 2% other
• 38% have had children’s services involvement
• 40% reported history of criminality
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Nature of gangs
•
•
•
•
•
Area-based
Predominantly male
Some female only gangs
Variable ethnic composition across different locales
Raison d’etre and mode of operation varies across, and
within sites
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Routes into gang environment
• Involvement of family or friends in gangs
• Normalisation of gang-involvement within social network
• Desire for a sense of belonging, status, power and/or
respect
• Need for protection
• Disaffection with or disengagement from education
• Lack of training or employment opportunities
• Inadequate youth provision (particularly given the impact
of recent cuts)
• Difficulties at home or in care
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
A unique phenomenon?
• Reflects what we know about SVE in general:
– Perpetrators are predominantly male, victims are predominantly
female;
– It invariably takes place between people who are known to each
other; and
– It is used as a means of boys and young men exerting power
and control over girls and young women.
• Utilise existing structures/learning – CSE and sexual
violence, domestic violence, gangs
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Context: SVE in wider society
• ‘if we just go down the gang track we miss some real core issues of
all young people’ (professional focus group)
• Lack of understanding re ‘consent’ and ‘healthy’ relationships
• Gradients of consent: social context within which consent given
• Powerlessness of young women in relationships – ‘ownership’ of
females
• Normalisation of SVE and domestic violence in relationships
• Context of social media
• Violent language used to describe sex (battered, banged, beat)
• Co-presenting problems: alcohol, drugs, mental health issues etc.
• Victim-blaming
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Context of gang-associated SVE (1)
• Gender and gang-associated SVE
– Gendered assumptions about victims and perpetrators
– Incidences against young men, but information not forthcoming
– Different conceptualisation of incidences against males/females
• Lack of understanding as to what constitutes SVE
- predominant discourses around masculinity and femininity
- confusion around consent and coercion
• Gradients of consent
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Context of gang-associated SVE (2)
• Hyper-masculine environment
Young women viewed in terms of relationships to males
• Normalisation of violence
Conflict mentality
• Relationship between role/status, perceived sexual
availability and risk of SVE
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Context of gang-associated SVE (3)
• Roles determined by males; subsidiary status afforded to females
• Risk of SVE varies according to status within the gang environment:
–
–
–
–
–
Sisters and other female relatives
Gangster girl
Girlfriends
Links
Also true of males
• Risk within the gang & risk from rival gangs
• Doesn’t usually affect others with no known gang association –
different routes in for young people in area/out of area
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
‘If she has a name and someone tries to sleep with her and she
won’t let them, they know that she’s slept with loads of other
people, they’ll force her into it. They would rape her. They
would rape her, if you class that as rape, yeah...You’ve got girls
like, one girl, I won’t say her name but if you go to [area] and
say her name everyone will know her. She’s slept with
everyone. Everyone. But it’s got to a point that cos she’s slept
with so many people, when people see her it’s more forced
onto her ‘Just touch it, man, just do that, just do this’ and then
she’ll have to do it cos she’ll be scared’
(21 year old young man, ex-gang involved).
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Risk of sexual
violence for all girls
and young women
Additional risk of
SV for girls involved
in violent peer
groups
Further risk of SV
by girls who
challenge violent
peer group
Risk of sexual violence for girls associated with violent peer groups
(Weller 2010)
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
In their own words...
“I remember a girl. She wasn’t going out with someone but she like
used to sleep with just one gang...and this other gang got her in like
some, they seen her on the bus, dragged her off the bus, took her to
someone’s house or whatever, made her suck all their dicks and all
that. Yeah, and videoed it, telling her to say like she’ll piss on
someone’s grave and all sorts...and I remember seeing her in like
local and all the lads from the area were like switching her and she
was like crying like, do you know what I mean? They made me do it,
they had a knife to me and everything and I was like, I could tell that
she weren’t lying“ (19 year old female)
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
In their own words
“Cases of pressure in which like a girl will be in a situation where
she’s probably with multiple males and they’re all up for it, but she’s
not sure how to get herself out of the situation...Come on, you know
you want to...They’re ultimately aware that they’re putting pressure
on, but like I said, that’s their aim. Like when I said about boys, they
want to have sex with as many people as they can. That’s their
target. You know can we all have sex with her...they do understand
that its not fair but if it goes ahead, then its by her choice because
they’re not physically forcing her...If she actually says ‘no, I don’t
want to do this’ then it won’t go ahead but if in her head she’s
thinking I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this but she ends
up doing it, then by all means she’s given her consent” (20 year old
male)
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
In their own words...
“She has decided she wants to go and have sex with someone but
she may have to face the consequences of having sex with more
than one person...She may not like it, she may like it, but that’s just
what happens...It’s more common that you hear the girl is raped.
She won’t say raped, but that she was taken advantage of or that
other people got involved” (18 year old female)
“It happens a lot. It could be eight guys and one girl...All having
intercourse, taking turns really. More or less treating the girl like a
piece of meat. Some of the guys will either give the girls drugs, spike
her drug or get her absolutely wasted...I’ve known a girl that that
happened to and she’s said ‘I don’t remember it so hey I’m just
doing what I’m doing...people look at me as a slag so why not get
treated like one” (19 year old female)
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Gang-associated SVE against males
“I’ve seen videos of where you know like, there was a phase where the
happy slapping was going around, where a group of boys ordered other
boys to strip and take their clothes and make them say stuff into the
camera, and just leave them there or told them they’ve got to walk home
like that” (21 year old female)
“I don’t know what they were thinking, but they forced a boy to give them
oral sex and they raped him...and everyone in the whole area was like ‘what
are you doing’ and now they’re outcasts, and some of them had big names
(21 year old male)
“I’ve done it to kids before, I’ve been saying ‘go in there, what’s up with you,
here’s a girl, I’m finished so you can go in’ and he’s like ‘I’ll go in there in a
minute’ and then you notice ‘em, like you can see in their eyes that they
don’t want to go in...when I first like a beat a girl and that, I got like not peer
pressure but it was like, that was, that was how I ever lost mine innit” (16
year old male)
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Responding: Identification and reporting
• Low levels of identification and reporting:
– Gangs systems historically focused on males
– Low levels of reporting of sexual violence in general
• Why not report:
– Resignation to, or normalisation of, such experiences – do not
realise there is anything to report
– Fear of retribution or retaliation
– Judgment/fear of what others might think
– Previous negative perceptions of police and other stat. services
– Lack of confidence in the ability of police and other statutory
services to offer adequate protection following a disclosure
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Responding: current issues
• Not actively looked for & not on agenda
• Data not collated
• Silo response:
– Gangs work predominantly male focused
– SVE work predominantly female focused & CSE services not
picking up gang related cases
• Issue of short term funding & chasing funding streams
• Lacking longer-term response: ‘they may get immediate
support from the authorities...but what about the one year, two year
legacy after they’ve reported it and that support has gone away and
then they’re left within the same community...having to face the
people who they’ve reported on’
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Messages for practitioners –
Victimisation and agency
• Importance of recognising both to offer appropriate
responses
• Use of violence to ‘de-feminise’
• Sex and exploitation as ‘survival’
• Loyalty, love or fear – weapon possession, alibi
• Question of ‘normalisation’ or a continuum of consent
may apply
• Understanding the ‘social field’
• Don’t forget the boys!
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
‘It seems like girls have to
either fight the boys, have
sex with them, or not turn up
at all.’
Frontline practitioner on the subject of safe spaces for gang-associated young
women and girls, Home Office academic roundtable event, September 2012
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
‘For me it was like that was my way to keep
in with the boys without having to beat
them. Like me, I‘m this little Asian girl, what
police is gonna think to stop me. I was
running stuff from Birmingham to London
and back again for time and never got
caught, even though I had a record of my
own‘
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Further reading
•
•
•
•
•
•
Beckett et al (2012) Research into gang-associated sexual exploitation and
sexual violence: Interim report
Firmin, C. (2011) This is it. This is my life...
OCC (2012) ‘I thought I was the only one. The only one in the world’ OCC
Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups
Pearce, J. and Pitts, J. (2011) Youth Gangs, Sexual Violence and Sexual
Exploitation
Weller, N. (2010) ‘Gangs: Don’t you know it’s different for girls?’ MA Thesis
(unpublished)
See also research published by Race On The Agenda (ROTA) in 2010: The
Female Voice in Violence Project
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr
Email: fiona.factor@beds.ac.uk
Tel: 07725 217229
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr/centres/intcent