An investigation reveals that at least 1,400 children as young as 11 years of age were subjected to “appalling” sexual exploitation in England’s town of Rotherham during a 16-year time period.
According to an independent probe by Professor Alexis Jay, the children were victims of gang rape and other forms of abuse from 1997 to 2013.
“No one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham over the years. Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1,400 children were sexually exploited over the full inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013,” Jay said.
“They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated,” Jay added.
Some of the children were reportedly “doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone.”