Grooming gangs/child sexual exploitation - was it going on in your area in the 80s/90s/00s? Did you realise?

[WhichBitchIsWhich]

Prompted by another thread about the Telford sex abuse scandal, I'm wondering how widespread this really was (and maybe still is but today's teenagers aren't likely to be on MN to answer).

I grew up in a small Midlands town and was at secondary school between 1993 and 1997.

It was definitely going on there at the time, though I've only realised the scale and true extent of it in retrospect.

Girls (working class white girls, to be specific) from our school would regularly meet adult men who they called their boyfriends outside the gates at lunchtime and "go for a drive" in their cars, coming back with a McDonald's a while later. They were often collected at the end of the day by the same men. Some of us recognised this as abuse (or at least as not okay). I remember discussing it with friends a few times as a teenager and we certainly knew these men were not "boyfriends" as the girls involved said. It certainly wasn't a secret, the staff knew about it and watched it happen but said or did nothing (I assume, as it carried on year after year).

Most upsetting to me was a deaf girl with learning disabilities who was in my form group, who lived in a local authority children's home in the next town over. She was pregnant at 15 and I still remember someone asking her in class who the father was and her replying "just some fucking [racist four letter word beginning with p and ending with i]" (apologies for even hunting at the word but it's what she said). She didn't come back to school after she reached about 6 months pregnant and I heard from another girl who had lived in the same "care" home that she didn't get to keep her baby.

I realise now as an adult what was almost certainly happening to her

TooTiredToSleepRightNow
I’ve commented a few times about my experiences and people on here would rather just brush passed and pretend it’s not really a problem. Sorry not their problem.
I'm sorry.
To me it's obvious that Asian girls and some boys are going to be on the receiving end of the abuse too, because predators don't have boundaries. Just power and opportunity.

I've not seen you commenting, but absolutely it's everyone's problem.
What's happening in the Black community is also everyone's problem.

Every single one of us who thinks any part of this is someone else's problem is part of the problem.

This doesn't make happy reading, but I identified with so much of it.

www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/19530/download/%E2%80%9Cpeople-don%E2%80%99t-talk-about-it%E2%80%9D-child-sexual-abuse-ethnic-minority-communities.pdf

I agree you need to be able to name a problem to tackle it. What concerns me is when we see this as being a problem with a specific group of men only, and an "imported" problem, aren't we providing cover for all the other groups and those yet to emerge, to carry on?

I don't think that talking about one problem is providing cover for a different problem. I don't think it has to be framed as 'only Asians do this' - but I do think that the emphasis needs to be on the perpetrators. We need to be specific about these gangs, who they are, who their victims are, and how they've been getting away with it. Myfear is that the more we prevaricate and pretend that race isn't an issue here, the more of a racist backlash is going to come.

There's already been too much 'cover' for these men - the police, social services, local authorities who were too "nervous" about race relations so allowed the destruction of children to continue unchecked.

I think the Catholic child abuse scandal is a good comparator actually - in that case, there was too much fear of going against the church. In this case, it's too much fear of being called 'racist'.

I'll name the problem: Police corruption and misogyny.

beastlyslumber i agree with what u say, im pakistani and muslim and from what i know IT IS a cultural problem that starts from home. It is a combination of a power imbalance and families covering up and thinking its normal for men to act this way.
It need to be adressed out in the open, there has been too much tiptoeing around the issue already.
I wish they would throw the book at these poeple and make an example of them, so many poeple within the community are sick of them getting away with it and many asian girls/families too scared to speak out, and this will get me flamed but i couldnt care less if they served a sentence in a country like Pakistan instead of here.

In my era there was to much fear of political back lash as PIE was legal and coatailed onto Gay Rights. Too much fear, or respect for, prominent members of institutions. There was too much concern of not disrupting known drugs intelligence for local gangs to be held to account for CSE, and later there was a view that children exploited ifrom care homes should be arrested and if the police wern't being allowed to then 'hard pressed police' had 'real' crimes to attend to.
There have always been excuses allowing it to continue. This time it's race and being afraid of being accused of racism.

Race is an issue here because the police and authorities made it one by deciding it was another excuse not to act on the latest emerging visible group of exploiters.
Isn't it time it doesn't matter who these men (and sometimes women)
are and what their supposed excuses are, and what position they hold in society or the 'underworld', or what race or religion they are, and the actual crime of sexual exploitation of children gets considered so abhorrent that it doesn't matter who the perpetrators are, and they are automatically arrested as scumbags damaging society?

This thread is really awful but so important

The sheer number of woman and children abused by these men from every single walk of life is absolutely heart breaking

Please hold your head up high if affected by this in any way , you did nothing wrong , you were a victim, you deserved so much better and our system failed you badly

It still does in many respects - let's make a difference - speak up - report - question - believe - respond - hold your loved ones close

Sending a massive virtual hug to every single one of you ❤️

Or am I wrong and Asian grooming gangs are a separate problem to all other grooming groups?

It wasn't just the police who failed though.

As soon as they threatened abuse victims with prosecution and returned them to their abusers, those children (and any agencies working with the children) knew there was no help to be had.

One thing they could do now is bring in 'Sammy's Law', which would pardon child sexual abuse victims for crimes they were coerced into committing or forced into shouldering the blame for others because they had little choice, and remove the offenses from their criminal records.

My only actual crimes were giving false witness against myself, heavily encouraged by the police!
A forced gift which keeps giving back for your whole life.

@Sadless
My daughter hates going in certain takeaway shops because she feels really uncomfortable with them all looking

I actively boycott these types of establishments. If your daughter is being made to feel uncomfortable I’d take my business elsewhere if you can.

Not reading the replies, I'm in Yorkshire and was groomed by the Asian gangs. The youngest girl I knew there was 11. Horrid stuff.

I grew up on a council estate with social service involvement and a neglectful mother and absent father. My friends were similarly vulnerable and one of them was in a children's home. All targeted.

@GCHeretic Absolutely. Anyone who refuses to see the truth is being deliberately obtuse.

Grew up in the Rotherham area and regularly as a teen hung around the town centre and unfortunately saw it happening alot there were/are alot of care homes in Rotherham that had many vulnerable girls targeted and alot working class familys. people often assume they were always older men but there were a lot of teen boys abusing girls too. Sadly people think it is a thing of the past but it's not its still going on.

Exactly, it's men.

According to the Home Office and police statistics, most grooming gangs are white.

If there's racism involved, it's the fact that white grooming gangs rarely get news coverage and are ignored by everyone, while Asian grooming gangs get a disproportionate amount of attention. White grooming gangs are also more likely to be protected by the police or by others in power.

Yes, there have been incidents involving white grooming gangs that are on the same or worst level than Rotherham and Telford.

Look at Home Office or Met Police statistics, or look up arrest data, or court records.

Ask yourself why the white grooming gang incidents have received no press coverage, and why certain posters are so determined to oppress and silence raped children and pretend that grooming doesn't happen, when the perpetrator happens to be white.

Yes, there have been incidents involving white grooming gangs that are on the same or worst level than Rotherham and Telford.

Could you give some examples? Names of areas, or any articles? It's strange that we haven't heard of these gangs. I find it implausible that it's because we want to protect gangs of white men - I'd like to see the evidence.

Just having a look and it seems you're talking about the report the government didn't want to release. The findings are not as clear cut as all that. It looks like "the main conclusion of the report is really that the government has no idea about the ethnicity of these offenders." (christianconcern.com/comment/the-disappointing-grooming-gang-report/ - article goes into a bit of detail on how the stats were derived.) So, it may be the case that there are more white grooming gang members than Asian in the uk, but we don't actually know for sure. Hopefully we will at least start collecting better data in future, as that is really a terrible state of affairs.

Another article, from the times - I think this is the general impression that people have of what's going on. If it's not an accurate reflection, then we really need proper data and reporting to understand what's actually happening. www.thetimes.co.uk/article/eab76944-06ce-11ed-8c31-545bf77a6173?shareToken=830108f42286234f6426b82bf1d0e7d6

In my experience Asian grooming gangs where allowed to carry on abusing for years and years because the police didn't want to rock the boat with racial relationships in the community.

When I was in secondary school in the 00's it was Eastern Europeans doing it - mostly Kosovans. Taking advantage of underage girls and taking their virginity.

(This was in the south east)

It happened here too. It’s not just an urban issue.

I know it was definitely happening in the North East in the 80s/90s.
It was prevalent in the West End of Newcastle, young girls being systematically sexually abused/raped by men in takeaway/food shops.
I can't say how l know, except that l wasn't involved in it, but l guarantee it was happening.

I remember a girl in year 7 (let’s call her Donna) bragging she had lost her virginity to a man in his 20s. At first we were all “🙄 sure you did, Donna” until we saw the man pick her up after school 🤢 we all called her a slag and she acquired a reputation for being promiscuous. She was also from a very rough family (single mother who has substance abuse problems and who actively encouraged Donna to smoke, do drugs and dress proactively at a young age).

Donna also had a massive falling out with another girl (let’s call her Lily) in year 9 because Lily accused Donna of making her sleep with Donna’s uncle when Lily said didn’t want to. Lily was also considered rough and promiscuous so no one took her claims of rape (I didn’t even think it was classed as rape at the time) seriously. I think it was generally acknowledged that she must have led the uncle on and then changed her mind last minute. Lily got revenge on Donna by hospitalising her in a revenge attack.

I was actually thinking about these girls the other day and had the sudden realisation that Donna was clearly being groomed and abused, possibly by her Mum & Uncle, and she in turn recruited Lily to be groomed. I felt awful when I came to the realisation. I asked my friend if she remembered these incidents and she had the same “Shit! They were being abused!” epiphany that I had. This all happened in the mid 00s and I honestly had no idea about grooming/grooming gangs and had very outdated ideas about rape.

Children need to be educated on the dangers and know the signs to look out for.