Nordic Model Now article on Grooming Gangs

All of this.

And I also agree that enquiries can be part of the problem and/or a delaying factor, rather than a useful process. They are also phenomenally expensive (see costs of recent Scotgov enquiries: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy4nnynq28o)

But someone with power needs to do something. Now.

To whom would we usually look in a situation like this?

The PM?

Step up, mate. Do it now.

I agree; NMN do great work. I just disagree with some of the points made in the article in the OP.

The authorities love a good long enquiry too, as long as they know they can control the agenda. Sure, some shit will come out that they probably rather didn’t, but it means they can tell people they’re doing something whilst actually kicking the can a very long way down the road.

An enquiry means people in authority / being criticised can say “we can’t discuss this until the report is published.” They can then delay on publishing the report for as long as they need to. Once the report is published (if ever) they can say “but that was the situation 4-5 years ago, of course we’re so much better than that now.”

Drag your heels long enough and nothing ever gets changed, but now it’s all so ‘historical’ that it would be ‘pointless’ to charge anyone in authority for anything criminal they did, with the added bonus that the group of people due compensation will be smaller, because some of them will have died in the meantime.

I don't disagree. I just think the corruption and failings by so many people is a huge issue across many of these locations and a government level would be needed to get to the truth.

I just think this country is addicted to very long, very expensive public inquiries, which (because of the legal structures around them and the complexity of the issues) take years to set up, run and publish the report. People love the drama and the witness testimonies.

Then the government generally TOTALLY IGNORES any of the recommendations for doing things differently, and there is very little pressure on them to take action. Setting up another public inquiry on this would just kick the can down the road for another five years. We should start changing things NOW.

An interview with Suzzan Blac for Feminist Current in 2017

www.feministcurrent.com/2017/06/06/suzzan-blac-art-trauma-child-exploitation/

I dont care how it stops, it has to stop. "Sex work" has to stop, it is prostitution, rape, trafficking, grooming, paedophilia. Someone has to be the bigger person and make all our institutions see the shit for what it is. I am sick to death of women particularly, defending Only Fans. The women and girls are not in charge, the men paying them to do whatever it is they are paying for are in charge. Because if they don't do what the man wants they don't bloody get paid! How simple is that to understand?
I don't care what colour, religion or bloody shoe size the men are perpetuating this, it has to be stopped. Elon Musk is a prick and has made a target of our elected Government and Ministers. The shouting from outside has to stop, everyone knows how to stop it, no one in charge is prepared to grab the nettle. Just protect our girls and women, it is a simple task. First whiff of girls being raped, the police go in and arrest, it is their fucking job. Social Services need to pull their socks up, women are the ones who can call this out, men don't give a fuck, they don't see things the way women do, we all know that, and fuck off with not all men.
It really is simple, have people in charge who give a fuck about women and girls. And when women want to march against VAWG, fucking let them. How simple is that? It does not have to be fucking intersectional, it has to be for women only. Jesus, we have lost our collective minds.

anyone recall how happy the very same police forces were to provoke and fight the miners, back in the day?)

Yes, it was before my time but I watched an excellent documentary on this over Xmas, my DP and his family are from a mining town.

Nordic model now is doing an amazing job on trying to ensure that prostitution illegal for buyers of sex and not for sellers. This approach enables any woman who sells sex to get help, medical attention and care whereas any sex buyer can be prosecuted and sent to prison (prison sentence if they realise that a woman selling sex is in distress).
i am fully supportive of these efforts.

YY, me too. And as I said elements of the article were good. I used to follow Suzzan Blac on another social media platform, what she documents is horrific.

There were white male social workers running care homes, right up to (at least) the 80s, who were organising the abuse of the vulnerable children in their care. It’s partly why we, on paper at least, have much stronger safeguarding measures now.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a big problem with gangs of men with other racial profiles abusing girls. Clearly there is.

Strengthening the Police’s resolve and ability to investigate and charge anyone, regardless of their skin colour, position in society or religious background and without fear of having to put down any social unrest that may follow (anyone recall how happy the very same police forces were to provoke and fight the miners, back in the day?) must be a goal that everyone would support.

Here's an article by Julie for Al Jazeera. She has been writing about it for many years.

www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2024/2/23/the-uks-grooming-gangs-and-the-lessons-never-learned

Nordic model now is doing an amazing job on trying to ensure that prostitution illegal for buyers of sex and not for sellers. This approach enables any woman who sells sex to get help, medical attention and care whereas any sex buyer can be prosecuted and sent to prison (prison sentence if they realise that a woman selling sex is in distress).
i am fully supportive of these efforts.

but as @ArabellaScott and @Ereshkigalangcleg points out, this is a fundamentally different aim compared to trying to ensure that there are no cover ups due to misguided sensitivities. We cannot watch women and girls being abused just because we don’t want to upset ethic minorities or religions (any religions).

This article raises a little bit about the class aspects.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-rotherham-cover-up/

Julie Bindel has also written on it - is recall an article on Blackpool though i can't remember where I read it.

It's an attempt at feminist analysis. But to me there's not enough class AND racism analysis, or understanding of what intersectionality is.

Access matters. Taxi driving becoming effectively a racially closed shop in some areas meant there was a network of men who were connected and had loyalties in multiple ways who had some social permission for girls and women to get into their cars. What other group of strange men do we TELL our daughters to get into the cars of? Naturally there were some people who could see that this wasn't right. But enough of them were deterred from really seeing what they were seeing by other judgements. So they saw girls who seemed to be 'making choices' which third wave 'feminism' promotes. Or they saw possible racism in themselves, so they judged themselves for feeling uncomfortable seeing white girls repeatedly getting into cabs driven by Asian men. Or they judged the girls from a class point of view for looking trashy and not doing homework or clarinet practice, and were very easily deterred if the abused girls fought back their judgment the way that abused children do.

Anything at all not to see the truth, that female children were being groomed and abused by networked, incĺuding racially networked, groups of men who had access.

As for the inquiries - I don't think personally think we should have yet another inquiry into the same thing in the past. I would like to know if it is happening NOW and what, if anything, has changed.

Exactly. Same here.

That is terrible. Reading it has made me feel sick. The poor children.

That said, I actually think it's less about the men's ethnicity and more about how little poor, neglected, vulnerable girls are valued by everyone (including Muslim Pakistani men, police and councillor men, and government ministers).

Yes, I think that's absolutely at the heart of it. But that the cultural elements are relevant in a number of ways and can't be handwaved away as so many people try to do. To tackle this problem properly we absolutely have to focus on it as a specific form of sexual abuse.

It's interesting that the article cites Weinstein. Saville, Epstein etc as examples of mass-scale sexual abuse by white men to show that it's not just Pakistani Muslim men doing it and having a blind eye turned. Those white men all had a lot of money, power and connections to leverage to make sure blind eyes were turned, whereas the child torturer rapist gangs did not. Yet it still works.

There is no way that if white right-wing nutjobs were operating rape and torture gangs on this scale that anyone in the media would not be digging into it and publicising it so widely.

That said, I actually think it's less about the men's ethnicity and more about how little poor, neglected, vulnerable girls are valued by everyone (including Muslim Pakistani men, police and councillor men, and government ministers).

The other FWR thread. There are also some fairly unhinged AIBU ones.

Labour rejects calls for Oldham grooming gang inquiry www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/5242968-5242968-labour-rejects-calls-for-oldham-grooming-gang-inquiry

And yes. All of this.

So whoever is calling for a proper inquiry into the grooming gangs today has my support.

Mine too.

I'm baffled by the demands for yet another inquiry.

The previous inquiries haven't focused on the issue as a whole, they've either been too localised (in what is a phenomenon with common features) or too broad, like the most recent one. You don't have to agree obviously, but on the other thread about this there has been some discussion. It's ok to not feel an inquiry did a particularly good job.

One good point in the article is that the gangs issue is about prostitution of children (and women).

That isn't a point that I've seen made clearly before.

The monetary and exploitative aspects are cogent and need to be acknowledged.

I'm baffled by the demands for yet another inquiry. We've had several inquiries and know pretty well what happened and why. What we need is a robust system for ensuring it never happens again, alongside proper monitoring so we can identify and address these crimes as early as possible.

Indeed. As with all the gender stuff, we can't afford to be too picky about who is fighting our corner. If we'll only accept help from people who didn't sir around doing nothing for the last ten years, and have never said or done anything hypocritical, nothing will ever get done. That's why Wes Streeting is generally forgiven for his former sins. Because he's doing a good job now. So whoever is calling for a proper inquiry into the grooming gangs today has my support.