County lines gangs ‘offering lip filler and botox’ to lure girls into drug trade 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.
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.
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.
However, women and girls continue to fall under the radar, with charities warning that they remain the "invisible" victims.
