Urgent Campaign Request: Rise in Teen Rape and the Silence Surrounding It

[worldaccordingto]

Dear Mumsnet Team,
In light of the powerful Netflix drama Adolescence and the conversations it has sparked around the vulnerability of girls and the cultural forces shaping boys,
I’m writing to urgently request that Mumsnet launches a campaign to address the rise in rape among teenage boys — and the harm this is causing to girls across the UK.
This is not speculation. The figures are real, and they are horrifying:

• In London, the number of 10–19-year-olds charged with rape more than doubled in just two years, from 35 in 2021 to 74 in 2023 (a 111% increase).

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/children-rape-offences-charge-police-cps-london-b1139359.html?

• Youth Justice statistics from 2024 show a 47% year-on-year increase in sexual offences committed by children in England and Wales — the highest number since 2018.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/youth-justice-statistics-2023-to-2024/youth-justice-statistics-2023-to-2024?

• According to Channel 4’s own reporting back in 2021, there were 633 reports of rape or attempted rape in or around schools over a 3-year period — the equivalent of one every school day.

https://www.channel4.com/news/teenage-boys-and-violent-misogyny-the-impact-on-young-girls? And yet, there has been no coordinated public response. No national outrage. No campaign to protect girls from this rising tide of harm. Frankly, this raises urgent questions:

1. Has Channel 4 been sitting on these statistic for four years without pressing for more recent figures?
2. Have any efforts been made to update the 2021 school-related rape data, or are we still relying on years-old numbers to describe an escalating crisis?

The silence is dangerous. Girls are growing up surrounded by misogyny, fear, and increasingly, violence. And parents are being left in the dark. Mumsnet has a powerful platform and a history of leading campaigns that matter. I believe this issue — the rising number of rapes committed by boys — is one of the most urgent of our time. We must demand up-to-date data, proper safeguarding, school accountability, and national conversations on what is happening to our children. Please consider launching a campaign to confront this now. If not us, who? With hope and urgency,

I suppose the number one question to clarify is, are the actual number of rapes increasing or the number of rapes the police actually do anything about? Because those are two very different societal problems and any campaign would need to target the right issue here.