Christine was 13 when she began exchanging messages online with someone she believed was a teenage boy.⁣ ⁣ On their first meeting, she discovered he was a grown man 10 years older than herself. He also told her he was involved with gangs and drugs. ⁣ ⁣ Over the next few years, he would use Christine to courier drugs, subject her to extreme sexual exploitation, and assault her so violently she feared she might die. ⁣ ⁣ Christine is one of four women who have chosen to waive their anonymity and speak publicly in the BBC documentary, Britain’s Forgotten Girls, about how they were targeted by criminals when they were children.⁣ ⁣ Their stories differ in detail, but reveal strikingly similar patterns of abuse. All four describe being targeted by boys and older men connected to drugs gangs, manipulated into abusive relationships, then repeatedly sexually exploited.⁣ ⁣ The Children’s Commission for England carried out an inquiry in 2025 into the sexual exploitation of children in gangs and gro...