What's going on in the UK with pedophile rape gangs?

Great Debates
1

This sounds like it should be a fake story. I kinda wish it was. Most people heard about the Rochdale pedophile ring:

The Rochdale child sex abuse ring involved under-age teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Twelve men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child, on 8 May 2012.[1] Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the police investigation.[2][3][4] The men were British Pakistanis which led to discussion on whether the failure to investigate them was linked to the authorities’ fear of being accused of racism.[5]

Of note: the police allegedly dragged their feet on the investigation because they were afraid of being accused of racism, as the perpetrators were Muslim British Pakistanis.

This would be bad enough if it was a one-off thing, even without the police fuckups, and even without one of the victims being taken to court for “racial abuse” towards her rapist while the rapist walked free.

Oh wait, my bad, that’s a different case where a child abuse grooming ring was poorly investigated due to the authorities being worried about racism. No comment on whether Ahmet Kurtyemez and Mehmet Citak are Muslims or ethnic minorities, mind you.

Also: Newcastle.

The Newcastle sex abuse ring were a gang of seventeen men and a woman who sexually abused adolescent girls and young women from 2010–2014 in Newcastle upon Tyne after plying them with alcohol and drugs. The men were of Bangladeshi, Indian, Iranian, Iraqi and Pakistani heritage who were aged between 27 and 44. The woman was a 22-year-old British white woman.[1][2][3] The number of their victims was over one hundred.[4]

…And Derby.

The Derby child sex abuse ring was a group of men who sexually abused up to a hundred girls in Derby, England.[1][2][3] In 2010, after an undercover investigation by Derbyshire police, members of the ring were charged with 75 offences relating to 26 girls. Nine of the 13 accused were convicted of grooming and raping girls between 12 and 18 years old.[1][2] The attacks provoked fierce discussion about race and sexual exploitation.[4]

And I’m not sure I’m not missing any.

In all of these cases, the perpetrators are predominately Asian men, mostly Pakistani, mostly Muslims. In all of these cases, there are accusations that people worried about racism dragged their feet in the investigation, or failed to report odd behavior, or otherwise enabled this.

I’m not sure how seriously I should take those accusations (other than in Rochdale, where they seem pretty well-established). I’m also not sure if the prevalence of Pakistani Muslims in these high-profile cases is merely a case of Chinese Robber Fallacy. So what the heck is going on here? Why are there so many high-profile cases of child abuse gangs going on right now?

2

There is a general atmosphere of waking up to historical patterns of child abuse. Not so long ago, it was rings involving seemingly respectable white men running some children’s homes, and in some cases police officers and possibly politicians of some renown, teachers in some private schools, and so on.

I’m not so sure that in these particular cases there was so much a culture of being afraid of accusations of racism (it’s not often bothered some of the police forces before), so much as dismissing the claims of girls who were already labelled as “trouble” and involved in prostitution and therefore not to be taken as reliable witnesses. And there are people interested in whipping this up as a problem specifically of and generally among Muslims per se.

3

There is definitely a cultural issue here, and yes it is largely centred around Pakistani males and its also a certain type of sexual offending.

This is not to say that sexual assault and rape of young girls is a Pakistani male issue since most such sexual assaults are by family members of all background, its the organised and collective way that its done that seems to be the key.

It is true that in some of the more notorious cases, such as Rotherham, Burnley, Rochdale etc that inquiries have determined that a pattern of failures by the police has been fear of offending on cultural grounds along with unsavoury stereotyping of victims.

Added to this is a failure of other agencies such as Social Services, sometimes schools and hospitals.

I have met a number of the headline offenders who were in prison for supplying Class A drugs.When you get into conversation with them you find their contempt to young white teenage girls was something they talked about quite openly - but that was before the lid was lifted and they were found guilty of these sexual offences. I can still remember them like it was yesterday, when in truth it was quite a number of years ago, simply because I really wanted to punch their faces in - you don’t talk like they were talking in prison and expect not to get damaged.

I now find that these individuals are now roundly hated by all other Pakistani offenders in prison - not because of their offence but because they feel it has made themselves be under a cloud of suspicion.

We now have a lot of useful information coming from those communities who really despise these sexual offenders as being a stain on their reputation and the result is that we are locking a lot more of them up - the situation is much much better than it was but it tends to crop up from time to time in other towns that were not in the original series of investigations - there is a sort of complacency that ‘It happened over there but does not happen in our town’

4

Once again, we have somebody who SHOULD know better, confusing pre-pubescent children with post-pubescent children.

6

God forbid we talk about people grooming, raping, and abusing people well below the age of consent (as young as 12 or 14) in terms of child abuse or pedophilia.

7

That did seem to be the case, at least until Newcastle.

Another strong characteristic has been they are first generation immigrants, and mostly from rural areas.

8

And the old saying about that placename needs to be updated with a rhyming, internet-savvy replacement.

9

Previous discussion in 2014 that included Rochdale:

As some point out then, the blame does fall on the perpetrators and the authorities that dragged their feet. And no, it is really ignorant to think that people in favor of immigration are not offended when confronted by issues like this as if they would not react, that is poppycock. In reality the vast majority is glad when the perpetrators are caught and when issues like that go against the law I can tell you that the law should prevail as that community told us when the incidents took place.

10

There are few aspects to this.

Firstly there is an institutional problem. You might ask yourself what your community does with kids from homes where the parents do not care. Alcoholic, violent, drug-addicted, perhaps with mental issues. The kids in the UK end up in the care of the local social services department. There is a care order. The younger ones are found foster parents, or relatives but for some, that may have challenging behaviour when they reach their teens, it may mean that they live in a local authority children’s home for young people until they reach the age of 16-17 when they leave the care system.

In these cases, and many others, the childrens homes were targeted by men who wished to exploit the girls. It did not help that the whenever the girls absconded, the social services would send a taxi to pick them up from a police station or some other location when they got into trouble. The taxi drivers became friendly with them. The girls would also hang out around the local takeaway/taxi office and the come in contact with local criminal gangs who would provide them with drugs, drink and attention. They would become the prostitutes of pimps who were well versed in how to hijack the emotional loneliness of these girls and get them hooked into that lifestyle.

This situation happens in a lot of places and it has been going on for years. The local authorities and police regarded the girls themselves as the problem. The social services are only responsible for them until they are about seventeen unless they fall pregnant. The police regarded them as a waste of police time.

Then there was the racial/immigrant political issue. All immigrant communities have social problems of one sort or another that they bring with them. Those from conservative societies where family honour is important can be quite inward looking. If their young men cause mischief outside the community with girls no-one cares about, why should they care?

Then there is the politics. The local politics in these areas is that the local party, usually Labour in these poor, run down post-industrial areas relies on the votes of immigrant communities. The police are also anxious to ensure that there is no political tension. A scandal concerning exploitation by immigrants on English girls is the sort of thing that would be seized upon by right wing activists. Any demonstration would provoke a big reaction from left wing activists supporting the local community. As far as the police are concerned they see this as a potentially huge manpower cost that would financially stretch local police resources and cause them huge problems. The social services, also resource stretched, see the girls as a problem that they are cannot afford to deal with, but with cease to be their responsibility when they leave the care system.

The result was to do nothing and sweep such problems under the carpet because they were underequipped and under-resourced to deal with it. These girls fell between the holes in the social welfare safety net.

Charities working with young people tried to raise the issue many times, but the protest of front-line youth workers were pretty much sidelined and ignored. It took a key report to lift the lid on this scandal.

However, eventually, a scandal does break and reaches the national news and this inspired police forces in other parts of the country to deal with the issue in their area. It then becomes apparent that girls are being moved around the country, trafficked by their pimps.

After several high profile cases, and official inquiries the national political system has reacted and there is now a process of institutional reform to eliminate young girls being exploited in this way. There are new laws, processes and procedures and a procession of cases coming to court and some heavy sentences.

So that is what is going on. The racial/immigration part of this really affects only a few areas. The problem of vulnerable young women in the care system slipping into prostitution and addiction is a widespread issue. Busting the gangs who exploit them is a job for the authorities and they get a lot of support from the communities involved. No-one wants this.

There are other vulnerable groups subject to such exploitation and there is a big effort to create workable laws that deal with it. The UK now has a Modern Day Slavery Act.

Fixing the revolving door of young people who come from unfortunate backgrounds bouncing between the care system, the judicial system and welfare, unable to make their way in society without causing damage to themselves and others. That is not a problem that is easily fixed by putting a few bad guys in prison.:frowning: