to be shocked and scandalised that this went on unchecked for so long? [MN edit; contains details of current Rotherham news story, possibly triggering]

[ReputableBiscuit]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28939089

worldgonecrazy

I totally agree with what you just posted. About the authorities involved.

Just saying that when it comes to the actual offenders the race/cultural issue is a much bigger factor.

I agree worldgone and also I think if they had any suspicion at all about any of those involved being colleagues or known to them they just turned a blind eye.

Yes JustTheRightBullets . I have noticed these attitudes myself on MN. Really pisses me off. Especially as the same posters, shout 'misogyny' at the drop of a hat on other threads.
Drives me mad that they can't see the hypocrisy and double standards.

I feel that there is no doubt that abuse is blind to race but we need to accept that there has been a pattern in recent times of 'Muslim' men grooming/abusing/prostituting young white girls. These men are not real Muslims but criminals who have,to a degree, been protected by their race as have other people by their class or celebrity.

Essentially as a society we have to ensure that victims are protected and believed, innocent until proven to be guilty should apply to the victims as well as the perpetrators.

criminals who have, to a degree, been protected by their race as have other people by their class or celebrity.

That's a very, very good point well put. The same applies to protection by their church, their secret business society, their legal authority and so on. Criminals abuse whichever advantages they can, and also secure silence through threats & blackmail.

As many authoritative commentators have noted, the even greater scandal is the covering up :(

Nazir Afzal was bullied by his co-counsellors, wasn't he? I seem to remember he was forced to wiggle out of pursuing prosecutions. (I've got brain fog today)

I once taught briefly (supply) in a school in Bradford where the pupils were 98% Asian mainly of Pakistani origin. One class of year 10 had 14 boys and 6 girls. It was meant to be an English lesson. The boys shouted very angrily at any girl who tried to answer a question. They talked about me in Urdu and refused to do anything I asked. I was a 58 year old married woman with 35 years of experience. One of the girls came back at the end to apologise and told me the boys said I was a prostitute because I wasn't wearing a wedding ring (I had taken it off because my hand was swollen).
The attitude of many young Asian men towards white women is frightening.
The boys from India who were largely Hindu were very different, polite, attentive and ready to learn. Their parents were the same. Similarly pupils from other ethnic minorities were equally pleasant.
My own son is married to a Turkish Muslim woman and lives in Turkey where I have encountered no mysogyny. The Rotherham case does seem to revolve around perpetrators from one cultural background. Of course there are abusers and abused from all walks of life but we are discussing one case. The failings of the authorities are almost as bad as the wickedness of the men responsible and their fears of being branded 'racist' make a mockery of justice.

this is still going on in other areas, that is the most shocking thing of all

been protected by their race as have other people by their class or celebrity
Yes we can believe people were protected by thier celebrity but it seems a crime to even discuss that people may have been protected by their race/religion.

Nazir Afzal

Yes he was bullied at times by other people in authority and by some sections of the muslim community. Maybe he was less scared of accusations because of his heritage but it still took courage.

There seems on MN no problem in understanding that peoples beliefs and values are greatly influenced by their social and cultural background/upbringing. Especially when itcomes to white chav, 'working class'. In the UK, America, wherever. (Think 'trailer trash, redneck, white trash etc.) Although people don't like to admit it, their hypocritical postings show it quite clearly.
There does seem to be a problem in recognising that views on gender, class, homosexuality etc. will also be effected and ingrained by racial or religious background/upbringing/community. I have been a member of these communities. It is real.
This has a much greater effect when different cultures are effectively (but unofficially) segregated as they are in certains towns in England.
I can understand this attitude because some people have no idea, no idea at all, what it is like to live there.
They are in denial, they really are. Sitting in there ivory tower thinking they know better than the uneducated racist chavs that experience it.
Shouting classism while being classist, racism while being racist.

Some people haven't got a fucking clue.

Thanks Crescentmoon for the information about Nazir, he sounds very sensible.

Greylady that's awful and talking in Urdu in front of you is rude. is it lack of education in the Pakistani community from their parents that is the contrast against Indians?

What I was remembering from this and from other cases was where perps were quoted as saying that sex with non-virgin non-Muslim girls was not important because they were not decent girls, by definition. So the perps themselves were in these cases making an explicit link with what they had decided Islam taught.

Now we all know that Islam teaches nothing of the kind, and is just as hard on rape and child abuse as any other major religion. I'm not a Christian myself, and hold no special brief for one faith over another.

So the question was, where did these kids get their interpretation and their social attitudes from? Because they did not grow up in Pakistan, they grew up in the Uk and had the same state education as my kids. Or so I thought.

I thought up thread a PP made an interesting point about bad communication across generations. And others have recently been calling for younger ppl to take over in mosques and improve the quality of preaching and scholarship that young British Muslims have access to.

"Do you think in Pakistan it is acceptable to go around and rape underage girls?"

Um, it wouldn't surprise me actually.

They wouldn't say rape of course, the girl gets money/gifts and it's seen as acceptable. At least that was what I witnessed in Indonesia, men openly discussing procuring 13-year-old girls for sex, for payment.

Some people are completely clueless about the ways of (the rest of) the world.

The papers seem to be stating that the only reason the police/social services didn't act was because of fears of accusations of racism, even though that's not the main conclusion of the report itself.

It's far more palatable to think of caring, competent public services with their hands tied by "PC gorn mad", then that they didn't care about the victims, didn't believe them and saw it as a waste of time.

There seems to be an unwillingness to accept how frequently sexual abuse is swept under the carpet.

These men didn't just abuse these children, but made money from it. I doubt hugely, that this isn't happening elsewhere, with similar levels of police/ss inaction.

Aga - many, if not all poorer countries have huge issues with children being sexually for money, that's an economic issue, not a cultural one.

No it is a male violence issue. It is men doing this to children. Why are we so reluctant to acknowledge that?

Well I think it's culture that makes it acceptable for men to do this and discuss it. It wouldn't be acceptable here.

People say it isn't acceptable Aga. But in reality when a child discloses, many people don't believe them or turn a blind eye.

How many men do you know travelling on lads holidays to places where men paying to rape children is commonplace? I know some men down the pub who regularly go to these places. People just laugh about it as if it is a big joke.

Normally people are less willing to upset the men they know in their lives, than to safeguard children.

Anyone from the Muslim community who speaks up lives in fear of retribution which highlights the fact that there are a great many who do not see a problem. In fact, more of an insult to Islam to protest against it. I don't know how/if some of these cultural attitudes (toward white women esp) can be overcome. The younger Muslim men seem to have the worse attitude which is frightening for the future.

There was a really interesting discussion with Andrew Norfolk, a Times journalist who's been leading investigations into this subject for years, on The Media Show on Radio 4:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04fc709

Starts about 2 minutes in, goes on till about 10 minutes in.

Tom Watson has been awfully quiet

Why isn't anyone talking about the 1400 parents? Where were they when their children were being groomed?