girls and gangs

Photographs by Kate Peters

I got pushed around by seven members of the Yardie squad. They were shouting, Get your knickers off, and then they raped me. The police didnt believe me
Juliana, left, who is now 23

Forced to store weapons and drugs, subjected to horrendous sexual assault and in fear for their lives, girls who get mixed up in gang culture voluntarily or not say they are the forgotten victims of broken Britain. Julie Bindel meets three young women who managed to escape

f you live in a gang area, says Keisha, a 20-year-old living in London, its nearly impossible not to end up being involved with the gangs in some way or another. I have always associated with a lot of boys who were in gangs. According to the latest government figures one in four violent attacks now involves a female. Between 2006 and 2008 more than 900 weapons were confiscated from children aged between eight and 18; many of them were girls being used as weapon mules, concealing guns and knives for male gang members. Some of these gangs are based in housing estates, others in a particular postcode. The groups, each made up of about 100 teenagers and twentysomethings, engage in turf wars over the control of small-time drug deals. Some members can earn enough money to make status

purchases such as semi-automatic pistols or BMWs. There are an estimated 2,800 active gangs in England and Wales. Nobody knows how many girls are involved in them but the number is significant and growing. Females tend to attach themselves to established male gangs; of the 174 gangs in London only three are thought to be girl-only. According to Carlene Firmin, the policy officer at Race on the Agenda, one of Britains leading social policy think-tanks, A lot of effort is put into trying to understand and work with male gang members, but girls do not get anywhere near the same amount of attention. It is a problem, says Firmin, that cuts across all sections of society. Many of the girls involved in gangs are from troubled backgrounds, but not all. One girl told me
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that she rebelled against her posh parents and school, and would travel across town to mix with gang members because it felt glamorous. But the girls soon find that the world of gangs is far from glamorous. Females are routinely passed around gang members for sex; sent as decoys to set up boys in other gangs; made to conceal and carry weapons and drugs for male members; and routinely raped as punishment for stepping out of line within their own gang, or by rival gang members to settle a score. Disenchanted girls who are drawn to gangs in the pursuit of friendship, status and acceptance find themselves being coerced into serious crimes such as kidnap and accessory to rape. Indeed, to join a gang at all, girls usually have to have sex with the gang leaders. The girls are known as wifeys, links and line-ups not complimentary terms. Wifeys are proper girlfriends to gang members, but they are carefully controlled. Links are used for casual sex, and line-ups expected to be sexually available to the entire gang. Many girls are attracted to the life because they see the boys in nice clothes and driving flash cars and want a part of it, one young woman in Sheffield told me. But there is a price. anywhere, and started touching me. Then the others did the same, one by one. I was raped by all of them. I was too terrified to fight them off because I knew I would end up dead. They filmed me being raped. I have no idea what they did with the film. Later I heard from another girl that this house is where they take the link girls for sex. One of her friends had been taken there a week earlier and gang-raped. They do this all the time. Some of the girls in their crew deliver girls to them regularly.

LAURA IS AND GREW UP IN SOUTHEAST ENGLAND. SHE WORKS FOR A NATIONAL CHARITY SUPPORTING VULNERABLE YOUNG PEOPLE

hen I was 12 I slept with a gang member. I just wanted attention no one on my estate liked Ive concealed me. Because I was quiet and read my large amounts of books no one spoke to me. I thought money and drugs I got pregnant but didnt know whose it was. sleeping with a gang member might for a partner. He The aftermath for me was terrible; I had to make me friends. trusted me not to have an abortion. I still see them regularly in I really regretted it. He made sure say anything, plus the street. They might not recognise me but everyone knew about it. One day it was extra income I will always remember them. I couldnt have a girl came up to me at school and reported it the police would just have said knocked into me saying, Watch out, Laura, right, was 12 when she I was up for it. Ive heard of other girls going she might be pregnant. I got her after became involved with a gang to police and they get nowhere. school and beat her up. I was arrested At least now I really feel I am making and cautioned. I had so much anger a difference in my job. I first came to the charity where I work in me. for help when I was 14, and then got involved as a volunteer, If you sleep with more than two or three boys you are a slag, before being taken on as staff. It gives me a good feeling to but they go around sleeping with as many girls as they can and know I might be helping girls avoid getting into the situation they are top dog. And the girls are no one unless the boys like I ended up in. them. Thats why girls are desperate to get with gang members. Sometimes girls will do anything to get status, like hiding weapons for their boyfriends. Ive concealed large amounts of KEISHA IS AND GREW UP IN LONDON. SHE IS money and drugs for a partner. It was just because he trusted A LAW STUDENT AND LIVES WITH HER MOTHER AND me not to say anything, and at the end of the day I got paid for TWO YOUNGER SISTERS it, so it was extra income. I thank the Lord I was never caught. live on an estate in south London. There have always been I started going out with one guy I didnt realise was one gangs in my area. There was one gang member who liked of the main gang leaders in Peckham. When we got to his me. A few boys from the crew where I lived got beat up by his apartment one day I was surprised to see five other boys there, crew and I got accused of setting it up. Thats something girls all members of his crew. I thought they would leave but they are used for by gangs enticing other boys down to their area just went on to the balcony. I slept with him and was about to to get a beating. My life after that was hell because I couldnt leave, but one of them came in and said, You dont need to go prove my innocence.

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I know one girl whose boyfriend is in a gang and she holds cannabis in her house for him. He will weigh it up in there, as well as storing it there overnight. Girls hold weapons in their house for gang members, too. They make girls hold things Keisha, right, is now studying because the girls are trusted to keep law at university stuff safe and to keep their business private. Girls are also used to get rid of guns, or to give boys an alibi if theyre in trouble. Sometimes the gangs rape girls to punish them, like one girl I know who passed on an STI to a gang member and they all came and gang-raped her. Or sometimes, if one crew has disrespected another, the boys will rape a girl that associates with that crew to punish them. There is lots of sexual abuse of girls by gang members. A girl I knew slept with one who told everyone she was a slag. Soon after I saw a gang of boys associated with his crew call after her. She tried to get past them but one of them grabbed her and punched her in the face. Because she had gone with one of give it back if I slept with him. He came round my house with their crew she was considered fair game by the others. She was a crow bar, said I was under his rules. After a month I decided crying, but two of the boys dragged her into the alley. They to go and meet him to get it back. He started feeling me up, came out later bragging that she had given them oral sex. but I managed to grab the phone and escape. Then he got She just looked blank. a load of his mates to come and beat me up, but I ran into my One time a notorious gang member wanted sex with me neighbours house. I was terrified. He had spent a whole month but I said no, so he stole my phone and said that he would only

All we hear from youth workers is about boys failing at school and how boys are being let down by society, but what about girls?

messing with my head. All he wanted was sex, but he wasnt going to ask me nicely, just blackmail and bully it out of me. He and another gang member had kidnapped a girl a few weeks earlier. She was held hostage for a week and raped by both of them. Because he is in a gang he thinks he can do anything he likes to me and the other girls on his turf. All we hear about from youth workers and the Government is about boys failing at school, and how boys are being let down by society, but what about girls? At least now I feel like I am doing something for myself, getting into law. I want to be able to contribute to the justice system in this country, not be part of it as a criminal, like lots of the young people where I live.

JULIANA GREW UP IN EAST LONDON WITH HER MOTHER, SISTERS AND BROTHER. SHE IS

W
Some names have been changed

hen I was 14 I joined a really good girls school. I tried drinking and smoking for the first time, and all we seemed to do was talk about sex. We were just normal teenage girls. One time we were approached by some guys aged about 18 or 19 who were looking for pretty girls. They invited us to a barbecue a few miles away. I thought, Great, because it was a really hot day. But when we arrived it was like a squat so we left and went to hang out in the park. I noticed some men walking past us a lot over a couple of hours. They were in their twenties and thirties; I found out later they were the Yardie squad. They came up to me and my friend

and pulled us both apart and then I got pushed around by about seven guys. They were shouting, Get your knickers off, and then they raped me. I cant be definite about how many did it to me but I guess six. I remember crying and thinking, It wont go on for ever and hopefully I wont die from it. I made myself think about what I would wear for school the next day. Eventually, I saw a park patrol car in the distance. Some of the men just pulled up their trousers and ran off, and others tried to grab me and take me with them. One man grabbed my head and said that I was ugly and that if they could have got one of my pretty friends they would have done. I ran away and fell on the road in front of the patrol car. My clothes were all ripped and I was bleeding. I told them what had happened and they took me to a safe house for women. Apparently this sort of thing happens a lot to girls in that park. I went to the police but I felt I wasnt believed by anyone. A small piece about it was in the local paper and one or two of the men were arrested but the case went nowhere. I was frightened. I would see them now and again in the street but the council refused to move me. One night I was jumped and raped again by some cousins of one of the men who got arrested. They said it was payback time. Although I have got my life together and have a partner and a three-year-old I am not happy. We should educate boys from an early age about respecting women, and also give young people something decent to do with themselves instead of roaming around committing crime. Otherwise nothing will change.