Exclusive: Warning of ‘safeguarding pandemic’ as gangs use increasingly sophisticated methods to groom children. Young women and teenage girls are increasingly being recruited into county line drug gangs, with charities warning that they have been offered beauty treatments such as Botox as grooming methods.
![[Charities have reported criminal gangs targeting young women with offers of beauty treatments]](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2019/02/15/11/girl-hood.jpg)
In some instances in the West Midlands, teenage girls have been offered lip fillers and beauty products as methods to groom them into carrying out criminal activity, while young mothers have been manipulated into carrying guns and drugs within their prams to avoid detection.
![[A lack of research and confidence from authorities in identifying female victims has led to difficulty in tracking the number of those affected]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/08/30/11/newFile-2.jpg)
In recent years, gangs have become increasingly sophisticated in their methods of exploiting children, with Class A drugs, dangerous firearms, and weapons frequently being transported by vulnerable youngsters in what is known as county lines. Calling it a “safeguarding pandemic”, Jade Hibbert of St Giles Trust told The Independent: “We have seen a massive shift across the Midlands of more and more female children being exploited. What they’re being manipulated with is Botox, fake eyelashes and fillers.
“It used to be designer handbags or clothes but what we’re seeing is more perpetrators paying for treatments.”. However, women and girls continue to fall under the radar, with charities warning that they remain the "invisible" victims. They are often viewed as valuable recruits as they are likely to attract less attention from the police, but the scale of the problem remains unknown due to a lack of solid dataset which is primarily focused on offending caused by young men.
