About how we used to perceive child abuse?

[Choosingalife]

I was thinking about this because of the Rotherham decision and was thinking about girls from my own school days (started y7 in 1992, did GCSEs in 1997.)

I remember older men coming to pick girls up from school, children of both sexes disappearing from school for long periods and not being chased up, girls in mostly year 10 or 11 but sometimes y9 being pregnant.

And they were seen as hard faced, tarty girls - ‘slags.’

Was it Rotherham that largely started to turn this perception around? Or has it already started to happen?

I grew up in a north west industrial town. I was born in 1979. I was a victim of traditional old "friend of a family" sexual abuse as a tween and then from age 13 I really started to rebel. I was drinking, smoking and having consensual sex with a boy my own age. I very quickly found that I was involved with adult men, often lower working class. They would stop their cars/vans near our friends group and offer to take us out etc, buy booze/weed. And so we went. As a teenager I would have absolutely said it was 100%consensual and I had a great time.

But as an adult that has spent 20 years in trauma therapy I see it for what it was. Grown men exploiting vulnerable young teenage girls and plying them with drunk and drugs to make them more able to get what they want. As a damaged teenage girl that was suddenly rejected/ neglected by her parents after declaring the family friend abuse, I was desperate for some affection and intimacy. Those men predated on that naïveté to saturate a sexual appetite/power balance and i was FAR from entirely mature enough to recognise that.

And I was one of those girls that vanished from schools. I was absent for 3-4 months at a time and never sat a single Gcse despite being a very high achiever before I turned 13. Grown men in work vans often picked us up from school at lunch time and we would go off for the day. Get changed in the van, go drinking for the day, get high and basically go back to their caravan and have an orgy. Despite knowing that this was exploitative, I have much better memories ( !?) compared to the sexual abuse id suffered earlier.

The entire thing is fucked up. Absurdly so.

I remember two girls in my brothers year so about 1991 ish (they would have been about 13)

they where the short-skirt-with-cycling-shorts-underneath,giggling school girls in our uniform-baby faced and definitely underaged

every lunch time they would walk together down the school driveway and wait
a bloke who must have been 25+ would openly pull up,they’d get in and they would drive off

theyd come back 5 minutes before lunch ended,tumble out of the car and he’d drive off

not one person-teachers,their parents,other parents or us school kids battered an eyelid at this-everyone was aware and nobody did a thing about it

Both girls had to leave as they got pregnant (or so the rumours said) and it seemed they where ‘slags’ ‘who got themselves pregnant’ ‘silly girls’ and ‘deserved it’

no mention of him at all

this wasn’t a one off-most of the girls had older ‘boyfriends’ and not one person did a thing about it-it was deemed as ‘what the girls wanted and if they got pregnant it was ‘their own fault’

I remember another girl who was walking home after school and some pervert tried to snatch her while she was walking past the park

all that happened is she got the blame for walking that way and was told to walk the longer route home-past the same park but not that spot-nobody spoke to him at all

fucking sickening

It had already begun to happen for white middle and upper class girls. The idea that they might be being coerced to believe they were mature enough to know, understand, and accept any consequences of their actions, was being used to defend them.

Society was beginning to reevaluate attitudes to Mandy Smith, Samantha Fox etc and feel uncomfortable about the lack of objection, and the way these girls were portrayed as knowing what they were doing and profiteering from the sale of their childhoods, and fundamentally in charge of their situations.

Society also started to understand the press and media better. It was also less in sway to the rich and famous.
The internet has been a double edged sword, but parents woke up to the fact that it could be anyone's child, lifestyle and money no longer protected a majority.

It took Rotherham to start turning around the perception that white working class class girls were just as much children as any of the same age. Sadly the only reason it happened was because the predators were 'other' and the authorities were scared of that. It became clear that fears around exposing cultural acceptance of it being seen as racist were driving the police.

Of course the reality is this countries predators have long enjoyed a culture of the child (prior to that women and children) being seen as responsible for anyone taking advantage of nativity, unprotectedness, or low value status.

Very little is talked about abused boys to this day, but it's known the abuse usually starts younger, and entry into being predated through pedophile rings and prostitution is often younger too.

I'm waiting for black and brown girls who often face double treble whammies to be properly recognized as the children they are too, though it seems the MET and school perceptions may turn out to be their Rotherham.

The types of abuse that were going on in Rotherham are still happening.

But yes, at school in the 80s. Older men in cars would pick up school girls as they walked the street and go off with them. One girl pregnant by older man at 14,. kicked out by her parents. Several girls pregnant by the fifth and final year of school ( so 15/ 16 years old).

As I remember things the men were never held responsible.
Girls were told to keep away from men and not tempt them.
In the 70/80's it stopped being shameful in any way for the men and intact started being celebrated if they could get a younger lass or a bit on the side of was seen as some sort of prowess.
80/90's with the mix of girls and women being much more independent and freer it was like a feeding frenzy.
The girls were responsible for luring and responsible for family honour then they were responsible for judging and defending themselves but at no time were men questioned or motives examined.
At best the men were helpless against the girls or the girls put themselves in that position so invited it at worst the men were hailed as studs and lauded.
By the 90's girls were conditioned to expect all kinds of exploitation so loads went under the radar.
In Rotherham (I'm local) they felt truly worthless and didn't have any expectations of a decent, normal relationship. They were still seen as the issue because they should expect it.
A perfect storm for predators. Things like childline were well known but these girls weren't the right victims.

I sat my GCSE's in 2000 so went to secondary in the mid/late 90's.

I distinctly remember having a school skirt, in maybe 1998 ish of a reasonable length but remember that style that had about a three inch split up the leg? Well all the girls at school had those. Mine instead had a tiny zip that you could open or close to create that split, again, about three inches long.

My mother was called in and told my skirt was inappropriate. Not because of the length of the split because everyone's was like that - because mine had a zip, which made it 'sexual' and IT WAS POTENTIALLY DISTRACTING FOR THE MALE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS ON AN ATTRACTIVE GIRL! (I wasn't particularly attractive I was a very standard 14 year old but I did have long blonde hair and big boobs). She was told I could give the wrong impression and get myself into trouble. Funnily enough I'd actually never even kissed a boy.

My mother was furious. Fine if the skirt hasn't been in breach of the uniform policy (it wasn't) but the reasoning given? Can you imagine a school saying that today? Mum told them that i would do up the zip (and I did) but she wasn't buying a new skirt.

Parenting a teen is hard work, whichever way you look at it.

One of the most difficult things is keeping them close enough - so that you know where they are - and staying on the other end of the phone - if needed - in case something goes pear shaped.

It is especially difficult because teens and tweens want to push their boundaries and want to move towards independence. But they are still children and each step of this towards independence needs to be managed carefully - with a safety net of carers, friends, friends parents and school/college safeguarding. Teens and tweens need firm boundaries and some already think they know everything about the world which obviously they don't.

I personally don't think there is much acknowledgement of what a difficult job this is - keeping them safe - at this vulnerable age - and all sorts of things can lead to parents being 'absent' at times and 'checking out'. Work pressures? Substance use? Pressures of post covid - teenage Angst which is difficult to cope with. Then there are pressures like
County Lines lurking around most every corner it seems.

I don't think it is a class thing with abuse either - I recently listened on Radio Four to the series which documents the abuse which went on - in top preparatory schools for decades and some aspects of which were still coming to light. Ashdown House for example. In that situation the secrecy and code of 'honour' meant that you weren't supposed to talk about what went on in school. Horrendous.

Parents no doubt - thought they were leaving their kids in safe hands. Awful. You have to be so vigilant nowadays as a parent. Keeping tabs and checking. Then you occasionally have the accusation thrown at you that you are 'over-involved'. Personally I would rather be accused of that than the alternative scenario where I do not check and something happens.

I don't think it is a class thing with abuse either I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying, which is that even as attitudes have slowly changed, some groups have been left to tough it out for themselves for longer, and Rotherham's effect was to draw attention to white working class girls being seen as the victims rather than the perpetrators.

CSA takes place regardless of class, colour or creed.
But, class and race often come into how it's perceived, normalized, silenced, or dealt with.

Class and race were central to why Rotheram was allowed to continue for so long.

Class and race were central to the fate of Charlene Downes, even the disposal of her body.

Class is often part of what perpetuated abuse and silence in boarding schools.

Class and race were central to blocking the investigation of predators from gay or ethnic backgrounds in the Islington homes scandal.

Race and perceived class is central to why so called BAME communities don't talk about it and are often poorly served when they try to.

I'm sure there are loads more, that's just off the top of my head.

If we don't acknowledge what often plays a part in how CSA is carried out and by whom, and who gets believed or not, then we don't follow the changing patterns and recognize the changes we need to make to try and meet them.
It went on in plain sight for so many years, and in some places and situations still does.

I'm not blaming parents, however predators (who can also be parents themselves) know that some of the best victims are the most vulnerable children.

Those who have no parents, one overstretched parent, a criminal parent, a parent known to SS, have had their parents removed from them, or whose parents have assigned someone else to care for them.
Children who are already dis believed or ignored, and who don't have good boundaries. (many of whom fall into the earlier categories too.)
Children who wouldn't dare 'being shame on the family/community,' by telling.

I'm glad people are reflecting on what they and others thought in the past and why, and are questioning it.

I agree with everything you've said.
What I was trying to say with the 'not a class thing' (although I didn't say it particularly well, was that I was aware of stereotypes

The 13/14 year olds who went of with the local professional football players were much admired and envied at my convent school in 1975! Thet weren't the youth players either were they Jonty?