A survivor of child sexual exploitation (CSE) has told an independent review how social workers condoned her Islamic marriage to one of her abusers at the age of 15 and left her with his family in a state of 'domestic slavery'.
Police, council and health officials in Bradford have apologised to children identified in a report on CSE in the city for 'where the actions of agencies in Bradford has failed to protect them'.
The independent review, published on Tuesday, said: 'At an early stage in the process of conducting this review it became clear that despite some significant improvements in agency understanding of and responses to CSE between the less recent and current cases, agencies and individuals in Bradford have not always got it right.'
The review was commissioned in the wake of the sentencing of nine men in 2019 following the sexual exploitation of a child in the care of Bradford Council.
The review was commissioned in the wake of the sentencing of nine men in 2019 following the sexual exploitation of a child in the care of Bradford Council. Pictured: Basharat Khaliq, Saeed Akhtar, Naveed Akhtar, Parvaze Ahmed, Zeeshan Ali, Fahim Iqbal, Izar Hussain, Mohammed Usman and Kieran Harris who were all jailed at Bradford Crown Court in 2019
The report featured the stories of five children including a girl referred to as Anna who was placed in residential care as a teenager but went missing more than 70 times.
Anna disclosed sexual abuse and coercion, including rapes, to a specialist project working with her but none of this was passed on to police or social workers due to client confidentiality, the review said.
When Anna was 15, she told the project worker she converted to Islam and married her older Asian 'boyfriend' in a Sharia law ceremony.
The report said: 'It appears that there was collusion with this by her Children's Social Care (CSC) social worker who allegedly attended the ceremony and assessed that her marriage was likely to reduce the risks incurred when Anna was missing.'
Anna then became pregnant and was placed with the family of her 'husband' as a foster child.
The review said: 'This placement did not protect Anna from harm but did in fact place her at greater risk and made her entirely dependent on them.
'Whilst in the 'care' of these adults she was subjected to further sexual abuse and exploitation, domestic abuse including assaults and coercion and what we would now recognise as domestic slavery during the time she lived there.'
The review said that 'during the time Anna was in care, she was being sexually abused and exploited by dozens of adult males, some of whom were known to her 'boyfriend/husband'.'
