Child strippers, could they exist today?
Crimes in respect of child stripping were largely committed by women. The nature of crimes that were committed by women were diverse. Some women resorted to theft when they were desperate yet others made a career out of it. Child stripping was a well recognised phenomenon in Victorian England. This crime involved the theft of children’s clothes not from homes or shops but from children themselves. Unlike the twenty first century when children are rarely left out of an adult’s sight, in the nineteenth century it was common for children as young as three years old to be allowed out to go to pay a bill or run an errand alone. Any occasion that saw a child outside of the sight of adult supervision was an opportunity for a child stripper to strike. A woman would approach a single child or two and lure them away into a dark street or deserted alleyway. This could be accomplished by the promise of sweets or money or by the woman saying that she was a friend of their parents. O...