By Dr. Rahul Shastri on Mar 13, 2015 03:57 pm
Published by IndiaFacts
Hundreds of thousands of minor English girl children may have been sexually exploited over the past two and a half decades, according to Ms. Sarah Champion, Labour MP from Rotherham. [1]
How many in agony?
A 2012 UK study confirms that in fourteen months alone, 2409 English girls were victims of sexual exploitation in gangs and groups. [2] While these are the confirmed victims in 14 months, government estimates put another 20,000 children at risk of sexual exploitation for the time period in the UK. [3] There are no estimates of the total number of girl children exploited over the last two decades, excepting in Rotherham.
An administrative inquiry into child sexual abuse in Rotherham by Ms Lay, estimated that in 16 years (1997-2013), approximately 1400 minor girls were sexually exploited. Based on sampling, the report estimated that a large number of the 988 case files with social care and police, actually described victims. It also relied on hundreds of cases discussed by Sexual Exploitation Forum and Strategy meetings, and data available with Risky Business to arrive at this figure.
The study noted that this was a conservative estimate, since it had no knowledge of unreported cases that were likely to be high. [4] Child sexual abuse of girl children seemed to be pervasive as were gang rapes in certain localities of Rotherham. [5] Under-reporting was likely because of bullying and ostracism by peers, and assignment of complainants to child care centres. [6] There are also references in the Report to reported police reluctance to register complaints by minor girls, regarding them as a ‘waste of time’, threatening complainants with arrests, the girls themselves being regarded as deviant and promiscuous. [7] This could have been another factor that deterred reporting to the authorities. Further, with one single exception, there was little information on abuse of male children. [8]
It seems plausible to hazard a guess that the maximum unreported cases in Rotherham could be four times as many as those reported to different authorities. [9] This suggests a maximum of 7,000 victims in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.
The government reports that there are currently 54 alleged child grooming gangs operating across England and Wales, which are being tracked by 27 investigative teams. [10] If one credits each gang with the same number of hits as Rotherham, then it is possible to say that the total number of girl child victims in England may have been between 75,000 and 3,80,000 since 1997.
The intensity of the agony
The problem is not merely of sex with girl children who are pimped out, but also the other horrors inflicted on them. The grooming gangs engage in the most violent brutalities, often involving “violent and degrading sexual assaults and rape. …oral and anal rape were the most frequently reported types of abuse.” [11] The purpose was to stamp control into the very psyche of the victims. [12]
The Rotherham report says: “It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators… one after another.” [13]
A victim of the Oxford gang described the “torture sex” and gang-rapes that she had to undergo at the hands of the perpetrators. One girl who was pimped out at age 11, was even branded like chattel. [14] There were accounts concerning men who would ejaculate and then urinate in children’s mouths, violating them in every orifice, as well as gang-rape by queues of men while girls were held hostage for hours, sometimes days – all the while being forced to listen to the screams of girls in other rooms with other men. [15]
The violation of England’s daughters
In Rotherham, the vast majority of the girl victims were white and English. [16] The 2012 UK study found that 72% of the girl victims were white, while 28% were black or Asian. [17] Hindu and Sikh groups claimed that the category “Asian” concealed the fact that most of these victims were Hindu or Sikh. [18]
British records reveal that the majority of paedophiles are white, while the second largest group is described as “Asian”. [19] It appears that most of these “Asians” are Muslims or Pakistanis, with the word “Asian” being preferred for political reasons. [20]
However, child grooming gangs that target minor girls, rape, torture and pimp them out, seem to be dominated by Muslims and Pakistanis.
By 2010, several child grooming gangs had been apprehended, and 56 men convicted. Of these, 50 were Muslim, mostly Pakistani. [21] The list of those charged or convicted for child grooming, since 2010 reads thus:
- Derby (11 Muslims, 1 British, 1 Hindu)
- Telford (7 Muslims)
- Rochdale (9 Muslims)
- Oxford (7 Muslims)
- Preston (2 Muslims).
In another case, Bhai Mohan Singh helped to nail four Muslims and two Hindus engaged in grooming minor Sikh girls. He reported investigating another 19 cases across the UK where minor Sikh girls were allegedly being groomed by older Muslim men. [22]
The Rotherham Report clearly stated: “In Rotherham, the majority of known perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage including the five men convicted in 2010. The file reading carried out by the Inquiry also confirmed that the ethnic origin of many perpetrators was ‘Asian’. In one major case, in the mid-2000s, the convicted perpetrator was Afghan.”
A report published by the House of Commons states: “Evidence presented to us suggests that there is a model of localized grooming of Pakistani-heritage men targeting young White girls. This must be acknowledged by official agencies …” [23]
Even Jack Straw noted that there was a specific problem with Pakistani gangs in some areas targeting white girls. [24] The commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown criticised the Berelowitz report for concealing “that some of the worst long-term abuse is carried out by mainly British Pakistani men targeting lost young white girls, often from troubled or poor families.” [25]
The overwhelming presence of Pakistanis in the grooming gangs is fascinating. In Rotherham, Risky Business in 2004, had mentioned 50 alleged perpetrators, 45 of whom were Pakistani, 4 were white, and one was African-Caribbean. It also mentioned a Pakistani family involved in taxi business supporting the gangs.
Dr. Heal’s report of 2006 noted that the problem had moved beyond Pakistanis, and “that Iraqi Kurds and Kosovan men were participating in organised activities against young women.” Thus, Muslims from other parts of the world also seem to be prone to get involved with the rape of England’s daughters.
Race, religion and the agony of England’s daughters
Paedophiles in England are mostly white. [26]
Nevertheless, the predominance of Muslims and Pakistanis in child grooming gangs, is striking. It is entirely disproportionate to their share in England’s population, which hovers around five per cent. In Rotherham, the Muslim population was only 8000, yet the number of girl child victims ranged between 1400 confirmed and 7000 projected in 16 years.
It is possible that the Muslim participation is a coincidence, happening only because, as the Derby police suggested, people of a common ethnic background come together in crime, favouring group action over individual initiatives. [27] Even so, the repetition of this coincidence across England is remarkable.
The Chief Executive of Barmados observed that this crime involved more than Pakistanis. [28]Muslim MPs warned against stereotyping an entire community. Keith Vaz added that this was not a cultural problem, while Khalid Mohammad argued that given a chance “there were Asian men who would do the same to Muslim and Pakistani girls … without discriminating.” [29]
The travails of Muslim English girls
In 2013, the UK Muslim Women’s Network produced a report on Child Sexual Abuse based on 35 case studies, where the majority of the affected girls were Muslim. Describing the abuse, it said: ‘Offending behaviour mostly involved men operating in groups . . . The victim was being passed around and prostituted amongst many other men…. The physical abuse included oral, anal and vaginal rape; role play; insertion of objects into the vagina; severe beatings; burning with cigarettes; tying down; enacting rape that included ripping clothes off and sexual activity over the webcam.’ … The Rotherham report comments that: “This description mirrors the abuse committed by Pakistani-heritage perpetrators on white girls in Rotherham.” [30]
It would seem that cultural norms, fear of ostracism, and sheer terror were used to prevent Muslim and Asian women from reporting such crimes. [31]
Why do Muslim gangs target English girls?
The base of the UK Muslim women report is somewhat narrow, resting only on 35 cases. In contrast, in Rotherham alone, there were 1400 girl victims, mostly English. Thus, it would seem that the gangs, while having inclusive appetites, may have preferred white English girls or found them to be “easy meat”. At least one girl victim said that the gang members exclusively wanted white girls. [32] It is also possible that this was because white English girls were not protected by their community or religion.
Soeren Kern of Gatestone Institute has even called this gang activity, “Rape Jihad” against children. [33]
Imam Taj Hargey writes that “the vicious activities of the Oxford ring are bound up with religion and race: religion, because all the perpetrators, though they had different nationalities, were Muslim; and race, because they deliberately targeted vulnerable white girls, whom they appeared to regard as ‘easy meat’, to use one of their revealing, racist phrases.” [34] Other Muslims have also admitted an abhorrent form of racism which fuelled the abuse, and that some young men did not see white girls as equal to their own daughters or sisters. [35]
The link between the agony of England’s daughters and religion is also traced by Imam Taj, according to whom many religious preachers treated all women as second class citizens, mere chattel, and white women with particular contempt and deserving of punishment.
Muslims in Britain “have been drip-fed for years [with] a far less uplifting doctrine, one that denigrates all women, but treats whites with particular contempt. In the misguided orthodoxy that now prevails in many mosques, including several of those in Oxford, men are unfortunately taught that women are second-class citizens, little more than chattels or possessions over whom they have absolute authority… The view of some Islamic preachers towards white women can be appalling. They encourage their followers to believe that these women are habitually promiscuous, decadent and sleazy — sins which are made all the worse by the fact that they are kaffirs or non-believers. Their dress code, from mini-skirts to sleeveless tops, is deemed to reflect their impure and immoral outlook. According to this mentality, these white women deserve to be punished for their behavior by being exploited and degraded.” [36]
He argues that due to these attitudes towards women, kuffar, dress and conduct, the Muslim gangs felt no kinship and solidarity with non-Muslims in their area, who were only regarded as “easy meat”. He also points out that the Oxford rapists never targeted Muslim girls in their area, showing that religion was closely tied to their targeting.
How the gangs work
Vulnerable and impoverished girls are targeted. Especially, if they have loose or liberal habits. Easy targets are welfare homes etc. Sometimes, the internet is used to identify potential victims. [37] Often, one victim is used as conduit to find others. [38]
The manipulation or ‘grooming’ process involves befriending children, gaining their trust, and usually feeding them drugs and alcohol, sometimes over a long period of time, before the abuse begins. [39] Often, this leads to the impression that the relation is consensual, [40] and victims themselves often see themselves as loved. [41]
Terror then follows as a means of control, with violent and dehumanising forms of abuse mentioned elsewhere. Girls whose loyalties are suspect, are stalked, their homes and cars attacked. In Rotherham, a girl witness who secured a conviction was murdered. In other cases, other family members were used as hostage in return for good behaviour. [42]
In Oxford, the Guardian reported that the family of a child victim was threatened that their daughter’s face would be cut off, and the throats of the family members would be slit. Finally, they migrated from the place after the gang threatened to behead family members. [43]
Seven factors that sealed the fate of England’s daughters
It is puzzling how recent immigrants to a foreign land could with such impunity inflict such depredations on England’s daughters and unleash such terror on the daughters of the soil. An analysis of the Rotherham Report suggests that seven factors may have been complicit to the prolonged and widespread depredations.
1. The ideological camouflage provided by liberalism
British education and media are steeped in a diet of modern liberalism that has a horror of exclusiveness, and a weakness for inclusiveness even to the point of cultural and national suicide. Hence, “majoritarianism”, “racism”, “divisiveness” etc. must be avoided at all costs. These then become key words that trigger a guilt complex, which paralyses healthy societal, administrative or political response to problems that have minority or racial overtones. Due to this, criminals with a minority halo get a carte-blanche, and the majority is held hostage by its own inclusive attitudes by small groups that do not suffer from any such illusions.
So it happened that “police, social workers, teachers, neighbors, politicians and the media have for decades downplayed the severity of the crimes perpetrated against British children because they were afraid of being accused of “Islamophobia” or racism.” [44] Social workers admitted to knowing about the problem in Oxford, but doing nothing presumably for fear of being accused of “racism”. [45] There was widespread belief among the youth of Rotherham that the police would not act for fear of being accused of “racism”. [46] The councils, police, administration and politicians all seem to have been influenced to hide the ethnic origins of perpetrators, or to obfuscate matters. [47]
One classic way of burying the ethnic or religious origins of the perpetrators is to refer to them as “Asians”. In the context of the Oxford gang, Taj Hargey said candidly: “Another sign of the cowardly approach to these horrors is the constant reference to the criminals as ‘Asians’ rather than as ‘Muslims.’
In this context, “Asian” is a completely meaningless term. The men were not from China, or India or Sri Lanka or even Bangladesh. They were all from either Pakistan or Eritrea, which is, in fact, in East Africa rather than Asia.”
The majority is thus held hostage to an illusory social solidarity, preventing it from facing and tackling the true nature of the crime. Thus, the Rotherham Report notes, “Several councillors interviewed believed that by opening up these issues they could be ‘giving oxygen’ to racist perspectives that might in turn attract extremist political groups and threaten community cohesion. … The approach generally was ‘not to rock the boat’.”
Political correctness is socially incorrect
There is increasing awareness that when crimes have racial, minority, ethnic overtones, “political correctness” can have huge social costs. In the current case it caused endless agony to England’s daughters.
Writing after the Oxford horrors, Taj Hargey says,
“But as so often in fearful, politically correct modern Britain, there is a craven unwillingness to face up to … reality … Part of the reason this scandal happened at all is precisely because of such politically correct thinking. All the agencies of the state, including the police, the social services and the care system, seemed eager to ignore the sickening exploitation that was happening before their eyes. Terrified of accusations of racism, desperate not to undermine the official creed of cultural diversity, they took no action against obvious abuse.”
In the Derby debates, Children’s minister, Tim Loughton, warned that “closed” Asian communities, “political correctness and racial sensitivities” had affected investigations into child sex grooming by Asian gangs. [48] A report published by the House of Commons, after noting that officials had been reluctant to draw attention to this problem for fear of adversely impacting community cohesion, says: “It is important that police, social workers and others be able to raise their concerns freely, without fear of being labelled racist”. [49]
The Rotherham Report puts the fresh thinking clearly: “The issue of race, regardless of ethnic group, should be tackled as an absolute priority if it is known to be a significant factor in the criminal activity or organised abuse in any local community”.
2. Social camouflage for ethnic crime
The social camouflage provided by minority leaders also plays an important part in paralysing the ability of mainstream society to address minority-specific problems. In some cases, instead of acting as facilitators of communication between the mainstream society and minority groups, they act as barriers. [50] Several Pakistan heritage women felt that reliance on traditional Muslim community leaders such as elected councillors and imams deterred them from talking about child sexual exploitation within their community. [51]
Most Pakistani councillors in Rotherham downplayed the problem, by calling it a “one-off, isolated case.” At the national level, Muslim leaders argued that the problem was not peculiar to Pakistanis and accused the authorities of stereotyping the community. [52]
Since, the traditional community leaders control communications with mainstream society, they can prevent a change of consciousness from percolating down to the vulnerable sections of their group. Worse they might even strengthen prejudices among them.
In any case, the Rotherham Report concludes that “there was too much reliance by agencies on traditional community leaders such as elected members and imams as being the primary conduit of communication with the Pakistani-heritage community.” … and that councillors belonging to minorities could play a part in tackling the problem “but only if they act as facilitators of communication rather than barriers to it.”
3. Minorities terrorised into silence
Gang perpetrators also use terror to ensure the silence of all minority group members. Thus, Dr. Heal in her 2003 report says that ‘In Rotherham the local Asian community are reported to rarely speak about them [the perpetrators].’ The subject was taboo and local people were probably equally frightened of the violent tendencies of the perpetrators as the young women they were abusing.”
This terror is supported by developing underworld linkages, based upon the economic spinoffs from crime. Dr. Heal’s reports observe how the gangs moved beyond personal gratification to operations that spread to cover finance, careers, drugs and guns.
4. Economic Launching Pad: Taxis
In general, domination of one branch of economic activity, especially if it is unorganised and not easily amenable to accountability and state control, provides a useful launching pad for criminal gangs. In Rotherham, this was found in the taxi business.
An economic launching pad is invaluable for many reasons: a) It helps to multiply personnel and players b) It helps to prevent leaks on perpetrators of crime and the nature of organisation; c) It helps to corrupt official machinery in the early days when organised crime has not developed financial and organisational autonomy; d) It facilitates a link up with the underworld leading to a reign of terror.
The importance of such a closed hold on an economic activity is shown by the fact that although the involvement of taxis was known for more than 20 years in Rotherham, it is admitted that : “In spite of this widespread knowledge, the action taken was often mere suspension of licenses, and very few convictions followed.” Reading the minutes of the strategy meetings of the Safeguarding Unit, one is “struck by the sense of exasperation, even hopelessness, recorded as the professionals in attendance tried to find ways of disrupting the suspected activity.” – Rotherham Report
5. Burial in procedures
The Rotherham report notes that : “stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the Police and the Council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham.” That apart, there were repeated submission in seminars by the Risky Business workers.
However, all this was buried in administrative procedures and responses. In 2005, the present Council Leader chaired a group “to take forward the issues”, that went nowhere. Numerous committees and commissions were set up, with pointless debates that saw differences suppressed. [53]
The inadequacy of normal legal procedures in punishing gang-based crime was first revealed by the suicidal success of Operation Central in 2008, that ended in 2010 with five convictions. In the aftermath, Child S who had played a role in getting evidence was murdered.
Showing how organised criminal gangs paralyse legal procedures, the Rotherham Report says, “One child who was being prepared to give evidence received a text saying the perpetrator had her younger sister and the choice of what happened next was up to her. She withdrew her statements. At least two other families were terrorised by groups of perpetrators, sitting in cars outside the family home, smashing windows, making abusive and threatening phone calls … . In the most extreme cases, no one in the family believed that the authorities could protect them.”
Operation Czar, begun in 2009, led to the issuing of abduction notices, but no convictions. Operation Chard in 2011 led to abduction notices and 11 arrests but no convictions. With gangs controlling the streets, convictions have been few and far between.
6. Quantitative tools of crime management
Modern crime management is based upon statistically prominent crimes which in turn depend upon reported numbers. This has several deficiencies.
When problems are driven underground by criminality and guilt, the few quantifiable aspects that remain visible are difficult to capture in numbers. This is especially because hard evidence is hard to come by.
Thus, social workers said “said that they struggled to use the risk assessment tool, because it recorded risks only where there was hard evidence .” So children with a high risk of sexual exploitation got low scores because there was no hard evidence. The numbers militated against the better judgment of committed field workers. [54]
Where criminal gangs are at work, reporting itself suffers. So policemen who focus on reported crimes, are often busy fighting the “crime” of their ‘own reporting’ (reported crime), while the actual crime of the street and the jungle of the underworld is completely missed.
7. The mystery of the lethargic police
The running thread through most of the cases that have been identified so far, is the mysterious police “lethargy”.
In Oxford, the court heard that the girls were abused between 2004 and 2012 and that police were told about the crimes as early as 2006, that they were contacted at least six times by victims, but failed to act. The mother of Girl “A” said the police and social services had failed to protect the girls and made her and other family members feel as if they were overreacting. [55]
 It is not that the security forces or the administration were unaware. In mid-90s, the awareness of child prostitution led the administration to set up the Risky Business project in Rotherham, mainly to protect the minor girls from the problem collateral to flesh trade. Soon the field workers found evidence of torture, rape, and organised pimping by gangs. From 2001-2006, the nature and extent of the crimes, including the Mohammedan affiliation of the perpetrators, were repeatedly covered in reports, seminars and discussions.
Against this spate of “sensitisation”, police actions in Rotherham seem quirky, to say the least. Complaints by girl victims were rejected on grounds of “loose character”. Some complainants were even threatened with arrest for wasting police time. In some cases, parents tracing offenders and reporting the crime were arrested, while the perpetrators were left free. In several cases, perpetrators who were caught were let off with mere warnings! [56]
Lethargy or connivance?
Evidence leads from the streets of Rotherham to the London Home office, from police “lethargy” to the possibility of connivance.
In 2002, a study was commissioned by the Home Office. The investigator got information from field workers in Risky Business, and passed on specific names and activities to the police for several months. When no action was taken by the police after several months, she persuaded a girl to turn witness against the gang, and took her for a secret meeting to the police headquarters to prepare for the case. In the headquarters, the girl received a message from the gang indicating that they knew where she was. The girl withdrew. When the investigator complained about police inaction and possible connivance to London, she was pressurised to amend her report, her access to police files was barred, the project was discontinued after a year by London Home Office, and finally the incomplete report was suppressed.
Investigations have now started in Rotherham. The rot has gone so deep that the victims cannot go to the police or the council, and Ms. Sarah Champion, the local MP has herself started receiving cases. About 14 police officers have been suspended within a month after the investigations were started by the IPCC. A senior police officer even asked the MP why she was surprised at the extent of police connivance. [57]
It is a case of too little, too late. The damage to England’s daughters has already been done.
A nationwide problem
Speaking of the nationwide sweep of the problem, Rotherham’s MP, Sarah Champion said “If you just think … we know at least four big cases each with a couple of thousand each in smallest towns. It’s extraordinary.” She estimates that at least a million English children could be at risk or involved. [58]
The extent and spread of the crime, local police “lethargy”, apparent suppression by London home office of adverse reports, the systematic downplaying of the issue at all levels of administration and policy making, prompt the agonising question:
Did England’s daughters pay the price for Britain’s policy of minority appeasement?
References
[2] “I thought I was the only one. The only one in the world”, published on 20 November 2012 by the Office of the Children’s Commission under the chairmanship of the Deputy Children’s Commissioner Sue Berelowitz.
[4] “This is likely to be a conservative estimate of the true scale of the problem. We are unable to assess the numbers of other children who may have been at risk of exploitation, or those who were exploited but not known to any agency. This includes some who were forced to witness other children being assaulted and abused.” Rotherham Report.
[5] “Many of the young people we met knew victims of CSE, either family members or young people they knew from school. … One young person told us that ‘gang rape’ was a usual part of growing up in the area of Rotherham in which she lived.” Rotherham Report.
[6] “… examples of children being bullied and ostracised at school because they were involved in sexual exploitation, and also knew children who became looked after and were placed far away from Rotherham. They told us that children would be reluctant to seek help because they would be ashamed and also afraid that they would be placed out of the area far away from their families and friends.” Rotherham Report.
[7] “The Police had responded reluctantly to missing person reports, as a ‘waste of time’. Some young women had been threatened with arrest for wasting police time; the young women concerned were often seen by the Police as being deviant or promiscuous.” Rotherham Report.
[8] “Generally, there has been relatively low reporting of sexual exploitation of young males, with the exception of the police operation and a criminal conviction in 2007 of an offender who abused over 80 boys and young men.” Rotherham Report.
[9] Government estimates that estimate 2500 current girl victims, and 20,000 vulnerable or potential victims, have an implicit ratio of 1:7 between actual and potential.
[12] “Experts agree that these types of abuse are particularly humiliating and controlling, and, as such, may be preferred by those who exploit vulnerable young people.” Berelowitz, S. et al (2012) in “I thought I was the only one. The only one in the world.” London: Office of the Children’s Commissioner.
[14] “Mohammed Karrar was given a minimum sentence of 20 years for the “dreadful offenses” he committed against the girls, including one child whom he branded with the letter “M” for Mohammed. He began pimping the girl when she was only 11, and forced her to have a backstreet abortion when she was 12.
In graphic testimony, one of the victims told the court that Mohammed Karrar would charge men £500 ($750) to have sex with her. They would take her to homes in High Wycombe where she would be subjected to gang rapes, incidents that she described as “torture sex.” The men would tie her up and gag her mouth with a ball to stop her cries from being heard. The men would play out abuse fantasies; sometimes she was left bleeding for days afterwards.” http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3846/britain-child-grooming
[15] The Telford sex gang – Wikipedia
[16] “In a large number of the historic cases in particular, most of the victims in the cases we sampled were white British children …” Rotherham Report.
[17] I thought I was the only one. The only one in the world”, Office of the Children’s Commission under the chairmanship of the Deputy Children’s Commissioner Sue Berelowitz, 2012
[18] Although an academic report by Katy Sian has challenged the claims made by the Sikh community, a BBC Inside Out programme examined several cases of young Sikh women being groomed by Muslim men, and Bhai Mohan Singh, who had gathered the evidence that had convicted the four Muslims and two Hindus at Leicester, said he was at that time investigating 19 cases from across the UK where Sikh girls were allegedly being groomed by older Muslim men.
[21] Derby Sex Gang, Wikipedia.
[24] Former home secretary, Jack Straw, said that though there were many white sex offenders, there was a “specific problem” in some areas of Pakistani men targeting “vulnerable white girls”, whom they perceived as “easy meat” for sexual abuse. Ibid.
[26] One officer observed to the court that the sexual offenders register consisted of “mainly white men.” Ibid.
[27] “Police suggested that there was possibly a willingness for abusers with shared ethnic backgrounds to work together in gangs, and not on their own. The judge in the case agreed that the race of the victims and the abusers was “coincidental” and that the crimes were not racially aggravated.” Ibid.
[28] “I certainly don’t think it’s just a Pakistani thing” and that there was an over-representation of ethnic minority groups in general among perpetrators – “it’s not just one nation.” Ibid.
[31] The Rotherham report says that when it reached out to local Pakistani women, “One of the local Pakistani women’s groups described how Pakistani-heritage girls were targeted by taxi drivers and on occasion by older men lying in wait outside school gates at dinner times and after school. They also cited cases in Rotherham where Pakistani landlords had befriended Pakistani women and girls on their own for purposes of sex, then passed on their name to other men who had then contacted them for sex. The women and girls feared reporting such incidents to the Police because it would affect their future marriage prospects.”
[37] “In a small number of cases, this led to direct physical contact, rape and sexual abuse with one or more perpetrators. The comment was made that grooming could move from online to personal contact very quickly indeed …” Rotherham Report
[38] “It was not unusual for children in residential services and schools to introduce other children to the perpetrators.” Rotherham Report
[39] “Typically, children were courted by a young man whom they believed to be their boyfriend. Over a period of time, the child would be introduced to older men who cultivated them and supplied them with gifts, free alcohol and sometimes drugs. Children were initially flattered by the attention paid to them, and impressed by the apparent wealth and sophistication of those grooming them. … “Boys gave me drink and drugs for free… I was driven around in fast cars.” Rotherham Report.
[40] Barnardo’s (2011) Puppet on a string: the urgent need to cut children free from sexual exploitation (PDF). London: Barnardo’s.
[41] Often a child said “I know he really loves me”, of the perpetrator.” … “Many were utterly convinced that they were special in the affections of a perpetrator, despite all the evidence that many other children were being groomed and abused by the same person. Some of the victims were never able to accept that they had been groomed and abused by one or more sexual predators.” Rotherham Report. Also: , http://www.lep.co.uk/news/local/80-child-sex-cases-in-just-three-months-1-1498631
[46] Dr. Heal “reported in 2006 that young people in Rotherham believed at that time that the Police dared not act against Asian youths for fear of allegations of racism . This perception was echoed at the present time by some young people we met during the Inquiry, but was not supported by specific examples …” Rotherham Report.
[47] “Several people interviewed expressed the general view that ethnic considerations had influenced the policy response of the Council and the Police … the Risky Business project Manager (1997- 2012) … reported that she was told not to refer to the ethnic origins of perpetrators when carrying out training. Other staff in children’s social care said that when writing reports on CSE cases, they were advised by their managers to be cautious about referring to the ethnicity of the perpetrators.
Frontline staff did not report personal experience of attempts to influence their practice or decision making because of ethnic issues. Those who had involvement in CSE were acutely aware of these issues and recalled a general nervousness in the earlier years about discussing them, for fear of being thought racist.” ibid.
[50] “One senior officer suggested that some influential Pakistani-heritage councillors in Rotherham had acted as barriers.” Rotherham Report.
[51] “The Inquiry spoke to several Pakistani-heritage women who felt disenfranchised by this and thought it was a barrier to people coming forward to talk about CSE.” ibid.
[53] A parent who of a victim, who became a member of a Safeguarding Board, “reported that they had many good debates, but disagreement was never reflected in the minutes.” ibid.
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