To be horrified at how much worse the "grooming gangs" actually were than I thought

[OneAmberFinch]

There are several other threads about Elon Musk, Labour, Jess Phillips, etc.

I don't want to discuss them in this thread. The other threads keep getting derailed and I just want a place to discuss how absolutely horrifying the new details that emerged this week are.

I knew that there were "grooming gangs" who would entice girls in care or from broken homes to be their "boyfriends" by giving them cigarettes and vapes, for example.

I didn't know that girls as young as 11 were being brutally tortured and raped, that people had been killed over it, including one policeman who arranged for some of the rapists to get off, houses burnt down. I didn't know the details of the violent gang rapes which I won't repeat here but you can find on X.

I'm just genuinely shocked and horrified.

Some of the court transcripts circulating are from 2013. How did I not know?

Oh God but they do!!

Like I said there is a reason to investigate how the police handled these particular crimes due to not wanting to create racial tension.. obviously mistakes were made.

But let's be honest the police have turned a blind eye to abuse of girls in care in many circumstances not related to cultural tensions!
I've seen it first hand working in mental health and coming across many care leavers.

The perpetrators deliberately targeted non Muslim girls on a vast industrial scale. Nationwide. In every major city. 250,000 victims at least. Surely that's something we all need to be aware of? Or do we brush it under the carpet and say "no religious racial element here everyone...just a bunch of victims randomly targeted for no particular reason!".

There's a big problem with male predatory violence in the UK.
You Let this be made about Islam its an offense against the majority of kids in this country who are abused by white men.

We do need to acknowledge that certain cultural backgrounds are far more likely to commit sexual offenses than others.

Take Sweden as an example. Look at the Birthplace of perpetrators section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden

And how many women posting on here would happily go on holiday to Egypt or Morocco and walk unaccompanied around busy urban areas and markets in a short skirt and tank top?

I think we're far past the point of pretending that all men pose an equal risk.

Details have certainly been withheld and whistle-blowers sacked and vilified. Even now some people are blaming the messenger (Elon Musk) rather than the vile abusers and rapists.

No Islam isn't the cause, you're right. But we shouldn't ignore that the culture in the Pakistani Muslim community does seem to have been a significant factor. It's like trying to understand the Troubles in Northern Ireland but not referencing the religion of the perpetrators. Not all Christians are Northern Irish terrorists, but all Northern Irish terrorists are (self defined) Christians.

Exactly what? I assume they're talking about the riots last summer. Honestly I'm surprised there aren't more riots especially after reading the more brutal details that have come out recently about the rape gangs.

I'm sure it does. But if I was one of the hundreds of thousands of white non Muslim girls raped because I was considered dirty due to being non Muslim I'd want to know why.

And not all the victims were in care..actually a lot of them had parents who loved and cared for them, hard as this may be to believe as they are poor and white working class so therefore must be assumed to be completely dysfunctional.

Fewer than 3% of all rape/child abuse/sexual assault crimes result in charges. Three percent. That’s not because they’re scared of upsetting a particular community, it’s because they’re men, and the victims are only women and children. The vast majority of perpetrators are white men.

I could understand people being so focused on ethnicity if 79% of rapes/assaults by all men resulted in charges (in line with other crimes) but they’re not. By making this solely a Muslim issue you’re overlooking the majority. ALL these men need stopping, Muslim or not.

It's true, but the PP said that it was 'never' women and that isn't true at all.

This is misinformation.

The annual Europol TE-SAT Report usually has right wing extremism accounting for about 3% of terror threats. The UK data is no longer included in the report since we left the EU but the trend remains pretty consistent.

Here's the edited highlights with a link to the most recent full report:

https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/new-report-terrorists-exploiting-global-tensions

It is very difficult to have a sensible discussion with some posters on here it’s laughable also so very sad.

Yes obviously all rapes should be prosecuted. I don't understand your argument. Are you saying that we should ignore the common religion, ethnicity and culture of these paedophile rapist gangs? And the religion and ethnicity of their victims?

Yes but we need to make sure we aren't just focusing on the culture and allowing that to become the 'reason'
This is a problem within white British culture too. Male predatory violence is a big issue. We don't want this to become "foreigners abuse our girls and we need to stop them!" This is an issue of male violence and that is massively being swept under the rug all the time here!!
It's like people will do any gymnastics not to have to deal with the misogyny prevalent in our own culture. We shouldn't facilitate that by allowing them to focus on this as an issue of some other culture. It's not.
There were cultural factors at play in some cases.. but these are far from the only cases. The bigger picture needs to be looked at at the same time.
It makes me extremely edgey when I see people solely getting angry about the police response due to cultural factors..
It's as though they just don't care about how these girls were viewed by US by our police force, by society.. this was to me the largest factor in these crimes not properly being investigated at the time.
And as I've said you still see this attitude prevalent.. thats scary.

If you're going to publish data on anything you really need to be sure your data is reliable. I assume ethnicity relies on self identification and is probably not mandatory.

By making this solely a Muslim issue you’re overlooking the majority. ALL these men need stopping, Muslim or not.

We are currently discussing a particular issue where the religious/ethnic background of a particular community IS a factor though. In fact doubly so, as it firstly allowed a mindset to flourish that thought of these poor girls as worthless, and secondly meant that police, social services etc were far too hesitent in dealing properly with the issue (and that's probably a massive understatement).

So in this case, it makes sense to keep the perpetrators' backgrounds in focus.

Sweden has changed its asylum and migration laws quite radically. I think it is something the UK should consider doing. Along with making it very hard to get a UK passport.

I would favour publication of these statistics on crime and ethnicity. Otherwise we look like we can’t face issues; and btw the Tory Party know exactly what these stats would say. They sat on them too.

Reform will clean up unless we can talk about this openly.

Sweden has changed its asylum and migration laws quite radically. I think it is something the UK should consider doing. Along with making it very hard to get a UK passport.

Yes. Slight stable-door-after-horse-has-bolted feel but at least they have acted.

Exactly. I think people in the UK and Ireland can instinctively see this and recognise the ways that religion interplays with culture which interplays with politics which interplays with organised crime. They can instinctively imagine why you might decide, say, to not report a missing person you know was killed because it would damage your community or hurt your political project.

I don't think people have the same level of instinctive understanding with Islam and the relevant cultures here.

The Telegraph article talks about how councils only let the Pakistani councillors do the investigation of rape gang claims.

I wonder how people would feel about the equivalent in the Troubles? Would you still say "all elected councillors are expected to uphold the law and treat everyone equally so there is no need to worry about bias..."?

On another thread someone tried to say "it happened years ago and the perpetrators have been prosecuted so we should leave it in the past for race relations" or words to effect.

Fucking crazy do these people seriously think it's not still going on? Not to mention it's the same people who think that way that are obsessed with teaching school kids about all the bad things white people did to black people centuries ago. But apparently we should leave something that's still happening right now in the past???

Google the Barbary slave trade if you want to find out something new btw.

Why were independent investigators not drafted in? So much could have been done at the time that wasn't & still isn't...

Just for clarity here...we are still talking about the rape and torture of little girls?

And the head of the CPS who did not prosecute the grooming gangs is currently sitting in Number 10 in his designer glasses and Labour are refusing a national enquiry in order to protect him.

What arrant, spiteful, ignorant nonsense.

White British culture has a massive problem with misogyny and with only believing 'perfect' victims. No arguments from me there.

But in the case of the subject of this thread, culture was a massive factor both in the behaviour of the abusers and the way that public agencies chose to let them carry on with the abuse. It was, police and local government officers have gone on record saying as much. We need to be able to talk about that openly without being called racists or being whatabouted. Pakistani Muslim men commited these crimes and the police and local government looked the other way on purpose to stop 'communities' kicking off. We have to be able to say that is what happened, in order to stop it happening.

Facts. I'm afraid.

I wish I could say I was surprised at some of the responses on here but I am not. It will take time to chip away at the solid walls of denial that are in place to protect from weaponised accusations of racism/Islamophobia/bigotry.

One thing I would say though is that claiming that talking about the cultural elements behind these matters is "fodder for the Far Right" is absolutely no different from the senior police officers/council members who down played this decades ago for fear of Race Riots were it to emerge that thousand of young girls were being raped & abused by Pakistani/Muslim gangs. Shameful that women on a site for women would still offer these justifications which we know have historically failed the girl children attacked and prioritises the cultural beliefs & rights of the men involved, over the agony of the girls.