Girls in gangs are leading "desperate lives" in which "rape is used as a weapon and carrying drugs and guns is seen as normal", a think tank has said.
The Centre for Social Justice said the "daily suffering" of thousands of women and girls "goes largely unnoticed".
Girls as young as eight are being used to carry drugs, it added.
The CSJ called for youth workers to be embedded in hospital trauma units to identify victims, and for more support to be given to help girls leave gangs.
The CSJ - a right-leaning think tank established by current cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith when he was Conservative Party leader - carried out the research with the London youth charity XLP, speaking to current and former gang members, voluntary organisations and government agencies.
TargetsResearchers producing the Girls and Gangs report heard that:
- Female gang members in their teens are being pressured to have sex with boys as young as 10 to initiate males into gangs
- In one case a schoolgirl was abducted and sexually assaulted by nine males because she criticised a gang member
- Young women associated with rival gangs are targets, in some cases forced to take part in a "line up", where they are made to perform sexual acts on several men in a row
- Girls and young women are frequently used to hide weapons and drugs - sometimes in pushchairs - because they are less likely to be stopped and searched by police
Involvement in gang culture has a detrimental impact on the education of girls and young women, researchers said, suggesting that some schools had turned a blind eye to gang activity in order to protect their reputations.
End Quote Patrick Regan XLP youth charityWe see increasing numbers of girls dragged into this appalling world of exploitation, criminality and hopelessness"
One headteacher told the study: "We can't compete with the attraction of fast cars, sex and drugs."
'No control'Isha Nembhard was part of an 80-strong gang in Peckham, south London.
She now helps other young women through the charity Foundation 4 Life.
"They're facing a lot of pressures because they're in a world that they ain't got no control over," she said.
"Especially when it's an older guy they're with or dating and you're 15 years old and your boyfriend's 21.
"He's got life experience and he can manipulate your mind in a certain way where he can make you do things."
The CSJ will host a conference on girls and gangs in London on Monday.
Rape as weaponDeputy policy director, Edward Boyd, said the report had discovered a "brutal underworld" where sexual exploitation and carrying guns and drugs were "almost commonplace".
"We are often unsighted about the desperate lives of girls embroiled in gangs," he said.
"While the media regularly shines a spotlight on the criminality of male members, the daily suffering of girls goes largely unnoticed.
"They live in a parallel world where rape is used as a weapon and carrying drugs and guns is seen as normal."
Mr Boyd told BBC Radio 5 Live that the way police carry out stop and search may be inadvertently leading to girls carrying illegal items, since 95% of those stopped were male.
Speaking to the World This Weekend on Radio 4 on what action he thought should be taken, he said: "After the riots three years ago, the government rightly identified that they needed to better understand the problems that girls were facing within gangs.
"Yet, three years later, we still know far too little, and what we're calling for is for government, for the voluntary sector and everyone else to work together to better understand the problems that girls are facing within gangs, and to support them to exit."
Former gang member Tracey Miller said she got involved with gangs due to her bad home life.
"I needed to express myself," she said.
"I was a leader, not a follower. I thrived on the adrenaline rush. I'm not proud of it."
Ms Miller, who said she was convicted of stabbing someone, said she had carried a knife for protection.
"I think I got away with so much for so long because I was a female," she said.
"There is not enough stop-and-search on women."
The report said a Home Office gangs strategy launched in 2011 had not made enough progress.
It called for:
- A scheme adopted by King's College and St Thomas' Hospitals in London to place youth workers on trauma wards to be expanded
- More support for women and girls when their boyfriends are arrested and imprisoned for gang activity
- Urgent research to be carried out to identify the true scale of the problem
Patrick Regan, chief executive of the report's co-author XLP said the biggest issue with girls in gangs was that "we simply don't know the full extent of the problem."
A recent report by the Office of the Children's Commissioner suggested almost 2,500 children were known to be victims of child sexual exploitation by gangs and groups.
But Mr Regan said the data "is merely the tip of the iceberg".
"There is no doubt that we see increasing numbers of girls dragged into this appalling world of exploitation, criminality and hopelessness," he said.
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