"Children gang-raped, beaten and burned with cigarettes"

Children smuggled into UK for sex abuse and slavery
Via: The Guardian (Paul Lewis)

"Most of the victims are girls and most likely to enter the country through airports to supply the underground sex trade or to work as domestic servants"

"Physical and sexual violence is often used to control and "break-in" victims, with children gang-raped, beaten and burned with cigarettes"

"While most of the cases identified concern children aged between 14 and 17, there are fears that the illicit import of much younger children is going undetected."

As well as a nine-month old baby, the report documents the cases of a three-year-old, two four-year-olds and eight children aged between five and 12, some of whom could have been brought in by adults masquerading as their parents.

The report finds that victims have often lived destitute lives in their countries of origin, particularly those from Africa smuggled into Britain to work as domestic slaves or in the underground sex trade.

"These children describe their previous life in terms of wars, abject and relative poverty, years of physical and sexual abuse, miscarried abortions, prison, witnessing murders, neglect and a desire to escape," the report says. "Some of the girls believed they were being rescued from their destitution and still refer to these persons who brought them to the UK as their rescuers."

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