Pakistani (Muslim) men running prostitution rings involving mostly white English and often underage girls as prostitutes. I came across this story watching European Journal on my local PBS station. Its produced in Belgium. Seems balanced to me.
One of the most shocking claims is that the British media/justice system swept this long running criminal enterprise under the rug because they were afraid of inflaming racial prejudices.
You allowed many women…many who were minors…to be raped so you Britons could e PC. Is there a side of this I am not seeing? Where is the outrage?
The relevance old boy is that the British Establishment allowed this travesty to continue because they were afraid to be seen as racially insensitive. Even when their own constintuency was being violated. The sheer number of offenders is shocking. Its really more about class than about race.
BTW…the ONLY reason this story came to my attention was from an European news source. Shocked at the way the UK government handled the case. If my outrage is misplaced…apologies,
google “oxford sex gang” and you’ll see the case was extensively reported in the UK media. heres a bit of a more balanced summary including the changes made to social services reporting after the cases.
One is the care of underage children by the state who have no parental support. Sometimes they are both vulnerable and troublesome and often become drawn into crime and exploitation. The issue is did the authorities meet their duty of care?
The other is social problems within some immigrant communities that lead to crime.
Most communities, immigrant or otherwise, have their problems. You can make a list, but people in glass houses should not throw stones.
In this case, there has been a big reaction within the Muslim community who are respectable, law abiding and quite appalled by this sort of crime. In the same sort of way that the scandals in devout Christian communities are both appalling and shameful.
On top of this, some have seen the opportunity to make political capital regarding political correctness, Muslim radicals and child protection. But that seems to have found little traction amongst mainstream politicians.
Most of the reaction in the UK has been measured. A crime was committed, the villains were brought to book and got appropriate sentences. A lot of questions asked about how to prevent it happening again. Hopefully some lessons learned.
There was no rug-sweeping going on at the level of government of the justice system, AFAICT, and the UK media is not known for its reluctance to inflame anything.
The controversy / tragedy lies with a variety of groups failure to act at an earlier stage when there was evidence of this exploitation - a well-coordinated family / police / social service / community effort could have tackled this early doors. As usual, social services get put in the firing line and blamed for fucking up.
Thanks for alerting me to the true level of shame I should feel, madsircool.
I think the real debate here is why the imam, Dr Taj Hargey, would “write”* for the Daily Mail. How much is he getting?
*The piece with his name on it reads like it was written by the same FuryGenerator 5000 unit that writes everything else they publish.
It’s been a major issue for some years now, both for the wider society and the ethic groups directly involved. Nice that the OP found a link on the Internet to get excited about.
Fwiw, cases involving so many multiple defendents take an awflul lot of prosecuting.
To be more precise. These were multiple cases of a specific type of grooming centred around taxi firms, fast food joints and other ‘nightlife’ type places.
And in this specific type of grooming and abuse the preponderance of abusers were young Muslim men. What role culture played and what role the fact that in the ‘nightlife’ professions this group were over-represented is an issue.
It is true that in some cases the Police were extremely reluctant to pursue cases. They saw it as an issue of prostitution not abuse and there were claims that race fears were claimed as an excuse.
It is also true that recently all mosques read out a statement at Friday prayer condemning attitudes to young women in their communities.
It is also true that the ethnic group that most abuses children is white men.
It’s a complex issue and no one has come out of it well but the ‘government’ did not ‘sweep it under the carpet’.
The last UK census revealed the 86% of the UK population has English ethnicity.
Small wonder then that crime statistics might reflect this majority. You can bury anything.
That does not mean to say that there is not a problem on a local level and that can be attributed to criminal gangs associated with some communities.
There are also problems with abuse within single sex educational institutions that have been going on for years. The latest scandal seems to involve celebrities and entertainers who seem to have been grooming their young fans.
At least it is coming out into the open now and people are getting jail terms.
The perpetrators appear to have considered it relevant, since a certain amount of melanin seems to have been a prerequisite for being part of the abuse ring and a certain rather lower amount of melanin seems also to have been a prerequisite for being chosen by them as a victim.
The broom used for this was not the legal system but rather the Catholic Church itself. The op was criticizing the political and legal system. Whether or not the allegation is true or not I cannot say. On a political level there tends to be an overwhelming atmosphere of multiculturalism rather than one of a melting pot in many Western countries. This allows immigrants to live as islands unto themselves if they choose to. Subsequently such a group is perceived as being less a citizen and more a squatter who is not invested in the well being of the host country.
If you put all that aside and the criminals were immediately brought to justice there would still be animosity toward any demographic group who immigrated to a country and then proceeded to enslave that countries children.
The pre-requisite was children who were supposedly in the care of the local authorities. Social workers, police, schools, healthcare - all these agencies are supposed to work together to protect children. But in this case it did not happen and they were left exposed to grooming and subsequently exploited by this gang.
This sort of abuse happens where there is inadequate protection for minors. The victims had one thing in common: there was no-one to look out for them. The perpetrators were like any other gang of criminals: opportunists with no moral compass who had no qualms about exploiting the only thing these victims had of value: their sexuality.
That sort scenario is a common pattern of abuse, the fact that the perpetrators come from an ethnic minority is not especially relevant. These are just criminals disowned by their own community.
However, it has been seized upon by the far right who have a political agenda that involves demonising immigrant groups. Behaviour that puts them in much the same category of contempt as the perpetrators in this case.