Girls are becoming as violent as boys

A Home Office report being published tomorrow is expected to show criminal offences committed by girls aged between 10 and 17 have risen by 25 per cent in three years.

Iyabo Oba, a youth worker from Hillingdon, has warned the rising trend for violent crime among girls could soon reach the levels involving teenage boys.

Ms Oba, who spent over a year conducting research among girl gangs in London, said: "Young girls are now not moderating, but aggravating the violence of young boys and they are becomingly increasingly violent.

"A Molotov cocktail of low self-esteem and hyper-inflated sense of self respect and shame mean that if a girl is attacked physically or verbally she will lash out. And as she does that, then she should, so the logic goes, be prepared to take 'man-licks' herself."

Ms Oba, whose findings will be published by the Centre for Policy Studies next month, said violence was shown by young women from a range of ethnic backgrounds, and teenage parenthood, drug use, poor education and housing were the contributing factors.

"Girls are also forming their own gangs or 'cliques' - not in the old-fashioned way, but for self-preservation and for material gain. Aggressive acts by female gangs are rapidly rising," she added.

Ms Oba,writing in the Daily Telegraph, highlighted last week's explosion in Harrow which killed a man. Detectives are investigating whether a gang of girls engineered the blast because a 17-year-old girl had reported them to police. Ms Oba also revealed that gang initiations require girls to mug innocent passers-by.

She said: "Be under no illusion: these girls are carrying knives and are prepared to use them. Their deep sense of insecurity also underlies the incidence of widespread casual sex.

"New York faced similar problems in the Eighties [but] now has the lowest crime rate of the 10 largest cities in the US. Can London, under Boris Johnson and Ray Lewis, fare as well? If so the rest of the country will reap the benefit."