Social workers in Bradford turned a blind eye when a 15-year-old grooming victim took part in an Islamic marriage to one of her abusers, a damning report revealed yesterday.
Despite the teenager not coming from a Muslim background, professionals meant to protect her then allowed the parents of her ‘husband’ to foster her after she became pregnant, it revealed.
One of her social workers allegedly even attended the wedding ceremony.
The terrified girl – referred to as ‘Anna’ – was left in a state of ‘domestic slavery’, too scared to leave the controlling relationship for fear she would be the victim of an honour killing, she told the report’s authors.
Details emerged yesterday in an independent report into the treatment of five abuse victims in the West Yorkshire city over the past two decades, which found that ‘children suffered abuse no child should have to experience’.
Alarmingly, it concluded that some youngsters in Bradford ‘remain unprotected’ from sex exploitation.
The report – described by the body which commissioned it as making ‘difficult and, at times, distressing reading’ – began two years ago after nine men of Pakistani heritage were jailed for more than 57 years over the sexual exploitation of girls who had been in Bradford Council’s care.
Read More: Social worker ‘attended wedding of terrified girl, 15, to her abuser’
