British teenager raped 90 times in weekend, report into UK sex slavery finds

GlobalPost

A teenage girl was raped 90 times in one weekend, according to a report into modern-day slavery in the UK.

The report, by Britain's Centre for Social Justice and due to be released this week, includes evidence from the girl, 16 at the time she was taken into slavery and raped.

According to the report, cited in several British media, more than 1,000 victims of trafficking were found in 2011-2012, nearly half of them British girls sold for sex. 

And that figure could be "only the tip of the iceberg" and "a pale reflection of the true size of the problem."

The report even described UK government ministers as "clueless" in their efforts to tackle human trafficking, demonstrating a leadership vacuum, and a "lack of awareness of the problem among frontline officials whose job it was to identify and help trafficked victims," the Guardian wrote

It said:

"We have encountered unacceptable levels of ignorance and misidentification of victims among the police, social services, the UKBA [UK Border Agency], the judicial system and others."

The Daily Mail quoted Christian Guy, managing director of the CSJ, as saying:

"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. Our once great nation of abolitionists is a shameful shadow of its former self."

The report makes 80 recommendations, including the appointment of an independent anti-slavery commissioner. 

The Daily Mail reported that the girl raped 90 times became enslaved after befriending girls vulnerable to abuse, though was not herself from an at-risk background.

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