Girls "left at mercy" of grooming gangs in Rochdale, England because of failings by senior police and council bosses, damning report says

This is what I came on to ask as well.

These poor girls were ignored by the police and social workers - why?

If we can't answer this question then the problem is / will just continue to be brushed under the carpet.

I don't want to read about another case of child grooming gangs in another city in another 12 months all because it's in the too difficult / too delicate to deal with box.

Girls coming from a chaotic or dysfunctional family are MORE in need of protection IMO because they don't have the backup, family support or their own sense of what's appropriate and what isn't; what they shouldn't have is their background being used against them.

I saw it = vouch it was brilliant and could have been the spur for Andy Burnham.
I have not seen ‘Betrayed’ so cannot know.

I think I heard this morning that Andy Burnham commissioned this report because of age brilliant BBC drama ‘Three Girls’ (I saw it), or perhaps it was because of www.imdb.com/title/tt7120578/ ’Betrayed’.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rgd5n#:~:text=Three%2Dpart%20drama%20based%20on,and%20sexual%20abuse%20in%20Rochdale.

www.imdb.com/title/tt7120578/

@Naptrappedmummy while I don’t entirely disagree, to say this is the fault of family dysfunction again blames the girls for their vulnerability rather than the predators who spot them.

They have an inadequate shark cage, yes.

Sorry how is that ‘victim blaming’? It’s blaming everyone who should be blamed - everyone who had responsibility for these girls who ultimately didn’t stop this from happening.

I don't feel fury or rage. I feel a deep, cold anger towards the police and and social workers who happily enabled this.

Spoken like a victim blamer who has no idea about grooming.

Weren't some of these girls from homes where they were cared for and there was was no apparent dysfunction? sure I can recall reading that.

The root of the problem is very usually dysfunctionality at home. Well adjusted, cared for children don’t tend to end up in situations where this grooming can take place and men twice their age seem like a good choice of company. Very usually they’re sadly trying to escape something and end up in their clutches. It needs to be a root and branch approach, IMO

Unless you know the families of these girls, i suggest you keep your opinions on how they were raised to yourself. And i think you are missing the point of the term 'grooming'.

Wheee do we even begin with this?

I agree with every comment here. Fury is not a strong enough word, nor is rage. These girls didnt stand a chance. I hope they are able to heel in some small way, bit by bit.

From previous discussions, isn't there a common theme of premature adultification for working class and/or Black girls? Like the defence of child prostitution somebody recently quoted ('the little madams know what they're doing and make a good living') as an argument that turned up in the then Hansard-recorded discussions about raising the age of consent in the late C19.

It reflects culturally rooted projections and fantasies of premature sexualisation and even hypersexualisation.

Of course, there are other views that would characterise mine as sex negative.

• produces a ‘scary futurology’ (Smith, 2010), with an overemphasis on protectionism, victimisation and objectification;
• neglects girls’ sexual agency, rights and pleasure (including how the eroticisation of innocence features in girls’ own sexual subjectification practices);
• renews enduring binaries of active, predatory male sexuality versus passive, non-agentic female sexuality (where girls’ sexuality is always risky/at risk);
• encourages either/or position-taking among stakeholders between sexual empowerment and pleasure versus sexual danger and protectionism;
• legitimises a heteronormative and linear developmental trajectory of ‘healthy’ female heterosexuality;
• operates as a white middle class panic over the desire for and loss of a raced and classed sexual innocence, and thus reproduces the othering of working class/racialised cultures as evidence of hyper-sexuality…

Renold, E., & Ringrose, J. (2013). Feminisms re-figuring ‘sexualisation’, sexuality and ‘the girl’. Feminist Theory, 14(3), 247-254. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700113499531

I also blame the parents of the girls (if not in the care system). It’s your essential job to protect your children, and they didn’t.

Edit: in addition to the police of course, I just think that parents if present should also be held to account.

A while ago I heard a quote about this type of thing. I wish I could remember who said it and where but it always comes to mind when I read a news story about CSE in towns and cities in the UK.

A campaigner said they were discussing a grooming gangs with a senior figure for child protection who said:

"We don't have a problem with grooming gangs, we have a problem with child prostitues."

Sharon that's appalling to read and it must be agony for you.

Plenty of coverage on the TV news tonight. Let's hope it reaches a critical mass where things actually start to happen. It's taken long enough.

@Sharontheodopolodous - I am truly sorry to read this about your relative. But i want to say thankyou for sharing your story, and highlighting the depravity that is happening RIGHT NOW. This is real life, with real victims. These girls are passed round from pillar to post by men who are operating right under the nose of the authorities. I don't know what the answer is, other than people in power need to be held accoutable. Like fuck that will happen. In the meantime, lets hope Maggie Oliver continues to do her fantastic work and these young girls have somewhere to turn.

I'm really sorry @Sharontheodopolodous .

By the way this is the Maggie Oliver foundation

https://www.themaggieoliverfoundation.com/

And sadly there have already been several tv programmes based on these happenings but they haven’t spurred anyone into action 🤔

Teenagers being told they have the competence to make full adult decision irrespective of eventual harm. 🙄

This should be a once in a generation story and it should not repeat itself.

For that we'd need to know why it happened and why the shouting nagging puritanical women who didn't understand sex positivity were not listened to.

I feel like we'll never know neither one nor the other.

Big thanks to these women who fought a fight I just can't seem to manage.

"Everything being done now, should have been done then. All it would have taken is the right people actually giving a damn."
.....

"I am angry that not one senior officer or official has ever been held individually responsible for these failures, lies and cover ups."

And even now, the BBC do not write in their report WHY the failing was so big. Because the police were afraid of being labelled racist. When the fact remained it was ‘certain groups of men’ who were proliferating the hideous crimes.
That situation is even worse today. Women gave fewer rights and less visibility than we did then.

I am so angry. The police just do not care about females. It's shameful.

It was ( probably still is) happening around Stoke when DD started her 1st Teaching job. A stream of Asian Men in cars at hometime picking Girls up. The fact that there was a resident Police officer at the school due to the gangs problem didn’t seem to deter them. One of many reasons why DD left there after 2 years, everyone just shrugged their shoulders.