Improve your experience. We are very sorry but this website does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend using a different browser that is supported such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
Dr Tirion Havard is an Associate Professor in the Social
Work Department at London South Bank University. Her
doctorate explores the role of mobile phones in the coercive
control of heterosexual women. With a background in the
Probation Service, Tirion uses her practice and research to
inform her work in relation to Violence Against Women and
Girls, including those associated with gangs.
In this webinar, Tirion will discuss young women and girls’
participation in gangs and ‘county lines’ drug sales. She
will argue that women and girls in gangs often are judged
according to androcentric, stereotypical norms that deny
gender-specific risks of exploitation. Gangs capitalise on
the relative ‘invisibility’ of young women to advance their
economic interests in county lines and stay below police
radar. Her research shows that gangs maintain control over
women and girls in both physical and digital spaces via a
combination of threatened and actual (sexual) violence and
a form of economic abuse known as debt bondage – tactics
readily documented in the field of domestic abuse.
Tirion will demonstrate that coercive control offers a new
way of understanding and responding to these gendered
experiences of gang life, with
important implications for policy and practice.