There will be a national enquiry into the grooming gangs

I went down a rabbit hole about this last night.

It seems like most of Pakistani immigrants to the UK, and most of the grooming gangs, weren't just Pakistani but from a region called the Mirpur valley, which is a fascinating history and has been largely isolated from the rest of Pakistan due to it's remote location for centuries.

I read a couple of articles about the honour-based approach to sexual conduct and the clan structures in the area and how this culture could have contributed to the abuse.

You might be aware already but it was all new to me and very interesting.

It also highlighted the problems with calling the gangs "Asian", as there is no increased risk associated with large Indian or Bangladeshi populations in an area. It's not the Asian diaspora, it's Pakistan, and a very small region of Pakistan at that.

I agree. It's because nobody want to start looking at the uncomfortable bits : like why are certain communities segregating themselves ? What's going on that is making them feel it is ok to not mix with white British people ? (Majority) And looking at why it doesn't get talked about. I should imagine cries of "racist!" "White tears/white fragility" is what stops a lot of it.... You literally are cornered from starting conversations.

It’ll be a white wash, and full of mealy mouthed ‘lessons learned’.

There are specific issues related to the Pakistani grooming gangs and linking them to other abuse scandals obfuscates some of the issues

If you and others want to talk about the ( horrendous) failings of the Catholic Church in Ireland can I suggest you start a new thread?

This is very true; I’m an SA survivor, of a white ‘paedophile ring’, of which my F was a member, as is my DSis. That was in the 70s and early 80s. So I’m in agreement that such ‘rings’ function the same as grooming gangs. Although I suspect that they’re far more secretive about what they’re doing. That might go some way to explain why the stats suggest that CSA is more prevalent per capita in the Pakistani community.

I also disagree with the suggestion that white families don’t protect abusers. They certainly do! Children are accused of lying/asking for it in much the same way. They’re also threatened into silence. So very few children report the abuse.

The Church has made statements/ apologies / commissioned lay people to conduct enquiries reviews/ reports

Yes, and then sidelined / discredited and otherwise led to resign so that they could carry on doing exactly as they wish ... as in the local church which has re-imported the priest who originally skipped back to Ireland ahead of the police

Ditto so many other institutions - churches, government, local authorities and hospital boards included, where a public "show of doing something" replaces actually doing it but fools some while they wait for attention to move onto something else

The whole process of hide/deflect/rationalise is so deep rooted - and depressingly so widespread - that it's going to take a lot more than current circumstances to change mindsets, and that's if it can ever be done

Thanks, I'm glad it's not just me (am I allowed this 'childish emoji ? 🫩) funny with the liberals, always resorting to insults when they can't brainwash and accept others perfectly valid reasoning.

💯It is a tactic to wear you down, these pps are not arguing in good faith. They have been doing it from page 1 and we are onto pg 6 now. Same old same. It is very illustrative for the bystanders.

That's not an argument, it's an exercise in condescension (you're very adept) followed by a childish emoji. Exploring other instances of institutional cover ups whilst talking about institutional cover ups is not 'whatabouttery'. It's on point. Personal attacks because you don't have an intelligent response, are not.

Luckily others are reading this thread. I'll make it simple for you : you keep harping on and on about the catholics as whatabouttery: I agreed with you, yes leaders should come out and deplore those awful crimes from "their own".

I also said Muslim leaders should too.

But you can't agree on that. You seem to keep going round in circles everytime I mention it. With "AHH but the catholics" and I'm saying "yes I agree, same with the Muslim community" then you come along again "AHH but the catholics" ... 🥱

You're calling me blinkered! Thanks for the laugh.

Yet again you're homogonising. I'm not 'all liberals', we're not the borg.

Your argument is very confused. You are talking about the Muslim 'communitiy' being held accountable and taking responsibility for the actions of a minority. Yet when I mention other 'communities' doing the same thing, that's denigrating them.

This is becoming circular because you're just repeating yourself. We didn't expect Catholic leaders and members to take responsibility for the actions of the IRA because most were sensible enough to understand that they didn't represent over a billion people.

What happens when you get tunnel vision, is that you don't see things in a wider context. For example, I see this scandal as an example of ingrained misogyny both from the gang members and society as a whole. It went on for decades because the survivors were seen as "trash" by all involved.

They were revictimised by everyone meant to help them. In fact, I'm sure one of them fled to Australia with her family because no one would protect her. That says a lot about how VAWAG is seen in society. We should be focused on shining a light on how this happened and making sure it doesn't continue.

It's whatabouttery. Remember that tired old example that I'm getting out of breath repeating on here : Spanish/Vs British drunkenness. So we include all drunken behaviour from all nationalities including the Spanish. We can't simply extrapolate a theme of "there's a lot of Brits coming here causing drunken chaos "???

I don't get how you cannot see your blinkered view. Well thank goodness, your type of 'look, look over there' it's everyone at it', is fast becoming unfashionable. I think most of us would like balance. But in your head, anyone who points out uncomfortable truths about a minority instantly is saying they hate all black and brown people. It's crazy !

From the subject of the thread? Yes fair enough. A thread on the general issue of why communities look the other way and how to change that would be interesting. There is no one size fits all - its inherent in society since the dawn of society.

You're talking in extremes. It's a common tactic of the liberals. I never once said "all Muslims should be held accountable for the acts of terrorists" never said it.

I don't get what you find so difficult to understand about this : Muslim and islam is not a western world religion. We've embraced multiculturalism (it's a lovely idea and it's a shame it isn't working so successfully) so when In a majority white, majority Christian/atheist small island , all recent terrorist attacks have been done by people labelling themselves as "Muslim" : I would think it's an absolute no brainer for Muslim community leaders to start advertising "not in our name ". Otherwise hatred and prejudice and hostility and division starts spreading. Especially when we hear "the Muslim community are appalled by these atrocities done in their name" yet we hear very little from the actual Muslim community.....

I don’t disagree with any of this but it is a deflection

I don’t agree that ordinary Irish Catholics didn’t look the other way. Girls sent to the Laundries were sent by their own families. If they ran away they would be rounded up by locals and the Garda and taken back. If abused girls were pregnant they would blame the girls.

The abusers in the clergy were able to get away with such wide scale abuse because too many ordinary people in communities looked the other way and did not want to see, refused to believe victims who spoke out, just as some in modern Ireland refuse to see the problems with racism in society.

This is certainly not unique to Ireland. The phenomenon of wilfully not seeing things for personal convenience or a reluctance to speak out cross every culture, race and religion. If you speak to French families in the south of France every family was connected to the Resistance - if just half of them were true then the Vichy regime would have collapsed on day 2.

Denial of this phenomenon is part of the problem. All we can do is talk about it, talk about how individuals might have behaved differently, accept that the whole community had some accountability and encourage people to speak up (which is broadly how West Germany tackled Nazism in schools after WW2). It is why safeguarding can never have sacred cows and shutting down debate is toxic.

Interesting how you denigrate people who disagree with you and say they're 'brainwashed' when they talk about all systemic abuse and injustice rather than pin it all on ethnic minorities. It seems as though some don't want to hear the uncomfortable truths they keep talking about.

It is quite gratifying to see their desperation and indefatigability. Slow clap for the effort. But you are doomed to fail. There are too many survivors and too much abuse, a lot of it still ongoing. They will speak - and many more ordinary people are now aware and will listen.

Why are you so desperate to scapegoat people? I'm pointing out that there are failures in all institutions, irrespective of ethnicity and you seem determined to blame only one section of society.

Catholics are a minority in England, the majority of Christians are C of E. Catholics have also been persecuted for their faith, singling them out from the majority.

I'm arguing that everyone in a community shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of a few. I don't expect every Catholic I meet to prostrate themselves and beg forgiveness and I don't expect every Muslim to either.

Don't allow these posters to bog you down with stats, outrage and the same circular reasoning. It is time to laugh them out of the room.

This is what is happening on this thread. The same whatabouttery by the same kind of actors who feign concern about victims.
https://x.com/StarkNakedBrief/status/1935066071201161517?t=4Meg7c7MvtqrEN6ALwXoYw&s=19

It’s just more of the same tactics that got us here.

Sadly, I think the majority of us can see that views such as the particular poster up thread are the reason we're in this sorry mess as a society.

All under the guise of an "educated" viewpoint. Which is why it has gained traction. Sometimes you need to take away all the over analysis and tying yourself in knots to prove otherwise and simply 'say what you see' most often, the most obvious answer, is usually the correct one(in this case that there's a very strong link with Pakistani perpetrators in the UK ) I expect it'll blow that posters mind that I have Pakistani male colleagues in my profession that I manage to get on with very well indeed without discriminating against them or hating on them. Doesn't stop the truth of these gangs though does it ?