Child sexual exploitation and abuse is an issue, one would expect, that all who choose to speak up on the issue would approach it with utmost sensitivity, thinking at all times of the victims and how best to safeguard them. The scandal that has once again been brought to the forefront of the UK news cycle involves the historic and systematic grooming, abuse, and rape of children and adolescent girls, between the ages of 12 and 18, in towns and cities across the UK.
The children in question usually come from vulnerable backgrounds, and most victims in the scandals in question came from the care system. Child sexual abuse (CSA) in the UK disproportionately affects girls, with 86% of recorded cases being against girls, and this issue is no different. The perpetrators of these disgusting acts, as has been widely reported in the media and online, are most prevalently of British-Asian descent, mostly Pakistani. However, this is is in dispute. Of the grooming gangs, the majority of these are of Asian descent, but of the overall CSA figures, as per a 2020 report by the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, 89% of offenders were white, and only 6% Asian.
However, of the grooming gangs central to this story, most of the offenders are of British-Pakistani origin. This statistic is enough for those with ulterior xenophobic motives to take to Twitter and Facebook to stir up hatred and division, to foment racism and violence, not just against those of a certain ethnic background, but against activists and politicians who have been lifelong advocates for the protection of children against CSA. This frenzy completely disregards the wider issue; as stated, 89% of CSA offenders in the UK are white, mirroring the UK’s overall demographic statistics.
In the cases of the UK’s grooming gangs scandal, there are recorded systematic failures by public institutions to take action and protect children. Then-Home Secretary Theresa May commissioned the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in 2014 after the scandal first gained national attention, providing its full and final findings in 2022, led by Professor Alexis Jay. This report found that organizations including the Church, local government bodies, and children’s care homes often prioritized their reputations over children’s safety, and documented systemic cover-ups, victim-blaming, and inadequate responses to allegations. The findings of the report emphasized the widespread and devastating impact of this abuse, and the institutional betrayal that left victims helpless, with destroyed lives, and without justice. The IICSA made 20 recommendations aimed at improving child protection, including mandatory reporting laws and the creation of a national redress scheme for survivors. Of those 20 recommendations, none were implemented under the 2010-2024 Conservative Government.
A further report specifically into grooming gangs and CSA in Rotherham, also led by Professor Jay in the previous year, found systematic failures by the local council and child social services, as well as a toxic culture in the local police force. The Local authority was found to be sexist and classist toward the victims, due to their mostly working class and disadvantaged backgrounds. There were findings that all authorities meant to protect these children were apprehensive, and oftentimes discouraged by their seniors, to report individuals suspected of CSA for fear of accusations of racism, as most were of Asian heritage.
The trends of the Jay report are not isolated to Rotherham. The almost ubiquitous nature of similar scandals up and down the country have drawn significant, and entirely warranted criticism of the authorities which oversaw these atrocities. That is where the blame should lie, with those who were on the ground and responsible as first responders and as primary carers, those responsible for reporting abuse and acting to safeguard vulnerable children, those who did nothing out of fear. The blame does not lie with the British-Pakistani community, not with national politicians of the day, and certainly not with the victims.
But, as with all scandals involving people of colour as perpetrators in the West, certain lowlifes, invariably right-wing populist lowlifes, have jumped on the bandwagon of criticism of the Government of the day to spew hateful rhetoric and spread misinformation. Already, since this story has once again gained national prominence, all British Muslims have been accused of the same abominable ideology as the few hundred evil perpetrators of these crimes. These accusations, first made in the foulest and darkest cesspits of online discussion, have been parroted and dog whistled at a far higher level, even by the close advisor of the President of the United States (some would say co-President), multi-billionaire Elon Musk.
Since the Jay report published its full findings in 2022, there have been calls for a further national inquiry to replicate Jay’s work and re-hash the same facts that were already brought to light by the Professor’s work. Other than Musk, at the forefront of these calls have been figures such as Nigel Farage, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and the current leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch. These people and other right wing and far-right wing commentators and politicians are calling for a new enquiry to focus only on grooming gangs, and most demand the inquiry should investigate specifically the role of British-Asian men in these scandals.
The fact of the matter is, CSA goes so much further than the grooming gangs issue. As I’ve said, 89% of those convicted of CSA offences int he UK are white. To focus specifically on grooming gangs in a national inquiry, when localised inquiries such as Rotherham’s have been proven to be far more effective at bringing the issue to light and providing justice to victims, would not only be grossly inefficient, but also would force victims to relive some of the most traumatic and horrific experiences a human being can be subjected to.
The reason bastards like Farage and Yaxley-Lennon want a national enquiry to focus specifically on Pakistani grooming gangs is self-evident. Farage has always benefitted from stirring up xenophobic sentiments of his target voters, and Yaxley-Lennon has been the face of British Racism for at least the last 10 years, so this behaviour is expected of them.
For Kemi Badenoch to weigh in so ignorantly on this issue, at Prime Minister’s Questions today no less, was more surprising. More so because of Badenoch’s record on the issue, that she had the gall to bring it up. As I’ve said, not a single one of the Jay report’s recommendations were implemented under the Tories. They may have accepted the recommendations, but not a single piece of legislation was passed, or even brought before the House by Tory members, to pass the recommendations into law.
Of course, the main topic Kemi wished to focus on in her line of questioning was not concern for the victims, support being made available to them, or the Government’s actions to safeguard other vulnerable children. She chose to focus the majority of her questions on the ethnicity of the perpetrators. Kemi, and others, have raised the point that it is not racist to talk about the grooming gangs in these terms, and I would wholeheartedly agree (by the same logic, it’s not antisemitic to call out the genocide in Gaza and the Israel’s apartheid state, but I doubt Kemi would stick to her principles in that argument). But to fixate on that one point as the focal point for your argument, to suggest there is some inherent criminal or anti-white sentiment within the British-Pakistani community, is as clear a dog whistle as one can blow.
It has another aim, of course. To bring the accusation that the Government is attempting to cover up the scandals and purposefully not engage in investigations into grooming gangs for some unknown reason, presumably an accusation of “wokeness” will be levied at some point. Kemi says he has been active on this issue, raising it in speeches and debates outside of Parliament. But that’s not her job, and it certainly wasn’t her job to do that when she was a Minister. Her job was to raise the issue in Parliament, to answer questions from MPs at the dispatch box on the issue, to legislate to protect vulnerable girls. As Keir said in PMQs, Kemi has not, before today, raised the issue of grooming gangs once in Parliament. Not once.
And don’t parrot her line of “she wasn’t a Home Office Minister”, that bears no relevance to the subject matter. She was Minister for Children and Minister for Women and Equalities. As a caseworker myself, those are the Ministers I’d write to first if I wanted answers on this issue. This issue fell well within her remit, but still, silence. It was not politically advantageous for her to raise the issue, so she did not deign to mention it.
This is a common theme that runs through all of those who are now speaking at great volume about grooming gangs. Farage, Yaxley-Lennon, Badenoch. None of them give a shit about the victims. They’re out to smear this leftist Government and score points against immigrant communities. Nothing more.
The same goes for Elon Musk. His online attacks on Jess Phillips for her support for local enquiries into grooming gangs is nothing short of sickening. Jess has done more to protect women and girls from violence and abuse than Musk ever has or ever will. Guaranteed, in a few months’ time, Musk will have dropped the issue like a bad habit, but Jess will still be working in her role as Minister for Safeguarding. Before Labour came to Government, before she was elected to Parliament, before she was even a councillor, Jess had been working to provide protection and support to the vulnerable, the victims, the survivors of violence and abuse since long before Musk had bought Twitter. Her maiden speech in the Commons concerned protecting the homeless from violence and sexual abuse, and she has never stopped raising the issue throughout her time in opposition. Out of all the Labour MPs before the election, she was the natural choice to lead the national response to this issue. Jess is the only politician whose voice should carry weight on CSA.
These attacks by Musk and others on Jess and the Labour Government, accusing them of protecting rapists of children for favouring localised enquiries instead of a cumbersome, time-expensive national enquiry to satisfy their appetite for social division should be appalling to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Making these type of accusations is how elected officials and activists get put into real danger, just for speaking up. When opinions on the best way forward are framed as unacceptable by one side or the other, unacceptable to the point violence is mentioned, that is how Jo Cox died. That is how Sir David Amess died. Extreme ideologies, of all stripes, use profoundly sensitive and nuanced issues such as this to appear righteous, with no regard for those who have actually been affected by them. They show apathy for the victims at best, and extreme prejudice to those who have worked their entire lives trying to care for victims and improve their lives.
Musk is attacking Jess Phillips for two reasons; she’s a lefty, and she’s a woman. Women in high profile positions like Jess always receive the most heinous abuse, and Jess is no exception. She’s had death threats, and worse, levied against her all her public life, and she’s been open about the fear these have caused her. By going on his Twitter tirade, Musk will have amplified hat tenfold. If he really cared about preventing violence against women and girls, at the very least, he would have kept his mouth shut.
stay safe
/e