9 men found guilty of 21 counts of sexual abuse

just listened to Any Questions and more focus on the girls, not on the rapists

This is quite a decent article for once.

Sorry I meant Question Time!

duchesse- if you watched newsnight last night you would have found your interpretation correct. The focus was completely on the girls behaviuor and background, the men were hardly mentioned. I was seething.

Yes, of course, hanging around kebeb shops at night means your asking to be gang raped.

I think saying the girls come from "broken families" makes it a lot worse! These are girls and children we should all be protecting but it's somehow easier on the mind to blame them for what happens to them? D'you think that's how they intend it to be read?

It's even more simple. They couldn't target Asian girls because they aren't allowed to hang out down the kebab shop at night...

Krotiq- everyone is aware that sexual abuse is more common from a family memmber than from a stranger. I haven't met anyone who is unaware of this well publicised fact.
Discussing the ethnicity of the man briefly doesn't alienate the problem- unless you assume everyone on MN is white, living in all white areas with children in all white schools and all white friends- It doesn't distance those of us who are non white or at least not living in these all white worlds from the case at all.

I agree with others that this is essentially a male sexual violence against female issue, rather than a race one. As we have seen recently with the Ched Evans case is that the idea of women being "gagging for it" and other such crap is not just present in Pakistani/Afghani Muslim communities, but in the white Welsh community, or the football community or ... basically in many aspects of British society, to a greater or lesser degree.

Perhaps the reason non-Asian girls were targeted is because they were seen as "other" and because if they targeted girls in their own community, it would have come to light in their community earlier (and they are more likely to have been found out).

I don't have a chance just now to root the info out, but a couple years back I believe, there was another case which was reported in the media pretty well the same as this one - grooming and commercial sexual exploitation of girls by Asian men. The assumption was that all the victims were white girls, but in reality, some were also of African, Asian and mixed heritage origins. I remember, too in that case that they tried to portray the girls as coming from "broken families," which as in this case, leaves an unpleasant taste of victim-blaming in the mouth.

Yes, I haven't seen any evidence that "the basic fact that it's men abusing girls has been discussed endlessly." If anything, what I've seen in the reporting of the case, in online discussions of the case and other cases where men are abusing girls and women, is a careful tip toeing around the issue. There seems to be a desperate attempt to show that it's only a certain kind of men (not like the good men we know, oh of course not) who abuse children.

It's the same line of argument that's used to shift discussions to "stranger danger" kind of abuse towards children rather than engage with the fact that in around 90% of cases, sexual abuse of children is carried out by fathers, step fathers, brothers or other trusted male relatives or men in positions of care.

SQ - 'In all of these cases the backgrounds and circumstances of the attackers and victims are scrutinised.

What is never scrutinised is the fact that it's male attackers and young female victims.'

This.

I'd feel much happier discussing the specific cultural contexts (and there always is a specific cultural context) once the basic elephant in the room is being adequately addressed.

I couldn't disagree more, SQ. No one wishes to highlight the fact that there is a cultural context so that they can turn the other cheek. It's a fact of this particular case that the girls they chose to prey on were not girls from their own community but white girls, largely in care, who were easy targets.
Maybe there were more worried about repercussions within their own community? Maybe they could latch on to a general disrespect for young white girls and find it easy to blame these girls for what happened? I don't know but as nasty bullying rapists it seems they targeted these girls deliberately.

Seahorses I think we all understand that cultural influences affect mens views of women.

I'll be honest and say that I have certain views about men in some cultures based on my experiences as being blonde and blue eyed and working in certain areas and having been treated differently by certain random men because of this but what we need to realise is that making this into a race issue DETRACTS from being an abuse issue.

It is an aspect but really more about men targetting vulnerable children!

Sardinequeen, Kritiq said 'over there' to refer to people discussing both judgements about the girls (broken families etc) and the Pakistani people.

But actually I am interested in reading about people describing the cultural context of it because I do live over here and my daughter is the one who will have to deal with it.

Older men groomed and abused young girls

They happened to be Asian in this particular case.

The end.

14.38 post there was talking about gangs, I missed a word out

"I think the basic fact that it is men abusing girls has been discussed endlessly"

Where. Show me all the discussion of this in the media. Show me where there are calls to act about male on female sexual violence (as opposed to specific cultural groups, specific victim profiles etc)

eg there are parts of the met that specifically focus on the sexual violence meted out to females around them.

But what is not really ever mentioned is the very simple fact that it is male on female violence.

Compartmentalising all of these "different" situations - others them - means people do not even have to start thinking about joining the dots and really engaging with the problem of male on female sexual violence.

I think the basic fact that it is men abusing girls has been discussed endlessly. I think that the hand-wringing of people bending over backwards to make this a non-racist crime is actually taking the focus away from the fact that the girls were raped and abused.

In all of these cases the backgrounds and circumstances of the attackers and victims are scrutinised.

What is never scrutinised is the fact that it's male attackers and young female victims.

The racism is your perception Kritiq.

Because the press and media and public focus on the "racism" will once again mean that the basic fact that it is men abusing girls isn't commented on or even consciously noticed.

Who on here is saying "over there"? The people focussing on the ethnicities and backgrounds of the children are the ones who are "othering".

If it's all to do with asian gangs up north then I don't need to concern myself with it really, do I. That's what a large chunk of the population are subconsciously thinking when they focus on race.

I think this is getting a bit patronising TBH. It is all very well talking about the common denominator of what happens to people 'over there.' I do live 'over here.' I live in this context. We are talking about Lancashire and (in other similar cases) Yorkshire. We are not talking about the moon or Alabama. My daughter will go to secondary school next year with children from these communities. My neighbour teaches in the schools in one of the specific areas where these things happened. People who live in the North, of all ethnicities, are not 'over there.' We are part of this country.

It is very simple. Sexism exists in a cultural context. Women have to cope with the context that is particular to that culture. The particular ways we are expected to respond and cope with sexism in Britain is different to that of sexism in Russia or Indonesia because there are cultural differences.

My daughter has to live with two different types of sexism, because we don't live in a multicultural area, we live in an area dominated by dual cultures. She will have to deal with white people who have a combined set of sexist and racist ideas about white girls and Pakistani girls, and she will have to deal with Pakistani people who have a combined set of sexist and racist ideas about white girls and Pakistani girls.

That doesn't mean this case is more about race than sex, or that Pakistani culture is more or less sexist than white culture or that all Pakistani men are more racist and sexist than white men. But it is necessary for people to who live with it to understand the specific nature of Pakistani racism and sexism against white girls, so that they can find ways of either dealing with it or challenging it.

Feminists are always looking at things within their cultural context. Why, just because it involves Pakistani people, are we saying that their culture is insignificant in this case?