Good Practice: Combating sexual exploitation

There has been a systematic failure to tackle the problem of gang-related violence and sexual victimisation of children and young people. The scale and nature of this form of sexual violence left the recent children's commissioner for England inquiry into child sexual exploitation in gangs and groups aghast: every year nearly 2,500 young people are victims in this way, with a further 16,500 at risk.

However, there have been some encouraging signs of progress in tackling gang crime in a number of English cities, including in supporting girls and women associated with gangs. Effective multi-agency work in cities such as Manchester and some areas of London helped shape the Ending Youth and Gang Violence strategy, developed in response to the disorder in cities across England in August 2011. However, this work has failed to acknowledge to any real degree the growing problem of gang-related sexual violence, often carried out by children against other children as young as 11 years old.