Black girls are almost three times more likely than white children to be subjected to an invasive Metropolitan Police strip search, new data claimed.
Liberty Investigates claimed 110 female children and teens were subjected to strip searches, in which their intimate parts were exposed between 2017 and 2022.
The campaign group, which exposes hidden human rights abuses, claimed the figures were disproportionate.
The new findings came after a report by the children’s commissioner found that Black children were 11 times more likely than white kids to be strip searched.
Liberty Investigates analysed data obtained via freedom of information requests.
It said almost half of girls subjected to strip searches by the officers in London between in the five year period were Black.
It stated: "Black female children are 2.7 times more likely than their white counterparts to be subjected by the Met Police to the most invasive form of strip-search, new figures suggest.
"According to data obtained via Freedom of Information requests and analysed by Liberty Investigates, 110 female children and teenagers were strip-searched from 2017 to 2022 with intimate parts exposed.
"Fifty-two of them, or 47 per cent, were Black, while London’s population of Black females up to 19 years old stands at 17.5 percent.
"Racial disproportionality runs throughout the Met’s stop-and-searches of both adults and children recorded by the force as female.
"Across the six-year period, 28 percent of more than 90,000 stop-and-searches of females of any age, including strip-searches, were of Black females.
"The disproportionality worsens for strip searches, particularly of female children and teens. The data distinguishes between strip searches where officers remove a person’s clothing but keep intimate parts covered, and those where the person’s intimate parts are exposed.
"Across both types of strip-search of all female age groups, 36 percent of people searched were Black. For children and teenagers up to the age of 19, 45 percent of both types of strip search were of Black people."
A Metropolitan police spokesperson told the Guardian: “We welcome the report by Dame Rachel de Souza, children’s commissioner, and were pleased to have played a part in her research. We fully acknowledge that we have overused this type of search.
“We have been making significant efforts to ensure the use of this tactic is absolutely appropriate in all circumstances and that our approach puts the child at the heart of decision making, with safeguarding of that child the absolute priority.
"This has resulted in a considerable reduction in the number of searches being carried out."
More than 2,800 children were strip-searched by police in four years, figures show.
A report by the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, found that the youngest child strip searched between 2018 and mid-2022 was just eight years old.
More than a third were Black boys, while Black children were six times more likely to be strip-searched, the study found.
It follows the notorious Child Q case, which saw a 15-year-old Black girl stripped by four female Met Police officers after she was wrongly accused of possessing cannabis.
Nearly a quarter of the 2,847 children subjected to such searches were aged between 10 and 15.
