Grooming gangs being labelled as "Muslim grooming gangs"

[Olga009933]

Why is religious heritage of child sex offenders only mentioned in headlines when the offenders are of south Asian and predominantly Muslim heritage.
Why not just label them as "grooming gangs" or "Asian grooming gangs" (if wanting to be be specific).
Just thinking and wondering about the thousands of white British and presumably non-Muslim sex offenders who make the news. How many of them are labelled "Christian sex attacker" or "Jewish pervert" etc? Why is the religious heritage of a sex offender only mentioned why the offenders are of Muslim background?
If mentioning religion for one particular demographic then surely its only fair to mention the religious heritage of them all?

Spot on.

I lived in one of the northern towns in the 1980s and assumptions would be made about you (me white female) if you interacted with a Pakistani male for anything other than paying for a take away or for a taxi ride.

At the time there were very distinct communities, something that made life hard for the Pakistani Christians who were seen as part of the 'other' group by both communities.

I think we underestimate how mysoginistic the police force as an institution can be.

When the women's and men's forced were combined what actually happened was the women moved into the men's force and the women's force was abandoned. That meant the police forces lost the skillset of the women, and didn't see it as skills.

A couple of years ago I watched a documentary about the Yorkshire ripper. A massive streak of misogyny probably led to the loss of more lives as the police ignored attacks on women / girls who were not prostitutes.

The documentary also interviewed the police who did investigate, even now one of them referred to them as something similar to 'some of the victims being innocent' i.e. not prostitutes.

@Feelingathomenow Same report says

"Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white."

Islam treats Kafir and Muslim women differently in every aspect. For example, Kafir women can be kept as slaves but cannot be married. On the other hand, you can not enslave a Muslim woman. These attitudes are extremely misogynistic. When your ideology dehumanizes an entire group of people, your ideology is encouraging crimes against that group.

The grooming gangs (and they should be called rape gangs) need to be understood within the framework and context of Islam. It is HIGHLY RELEVANT. Sure, it is uncomfortable to “target” a minority group but it needs to be done to protect those most vulnerable in our society.

Being a debate lord on mumsnet to prove how morally and intellectually superior you are is incredibly self serving. But carry on virtue signalling whilst tucked up in bed nice and safe in the Home Counties whilst girls without a single person in the world to care about them continue being raped and abused.

But that means nothing..in a country where the vast majority of men are white it’s little surprise that the majority of offenders are white. Of say 77% of men are white and say 60% of sex offenders are white, that’s still an indication that white men are under represented in the figures.

But most importantly The term “sex offenders covers a very wide range of sex offences. What we are talking about here are the child rape gangs. There is no legal definition of this so the results aren’t separately recorded. Hence the lack of data.

I hope that is now clear for you and you understand the situation

You can’t separate misogyny and Islam. Women are not even permitted to lead men in prayer. It may not be written in the Quran that women are beneath men, but if that is how it has been interpreted and facilitated by its believers, we can say that misogyny is a basic premise of Islam.

I do think this is a very valid point. I think until you have lived and worked in an area with a high Muslim population it is impossible to see the issue and easy to write off other peoples experiences as racist etc.

But when you live in a high density Muslim area you start to notice small things at first like how no women work in the businesses owned by them, how quite large gangs of men go places with no women. You start to notice the lack of women in any setting apart from shopping and child care. I invited my colleague to my wedding she asked whether her brother could come. You notice how there’s no mixed groups. You notice the lack of Muslims at standard things like remberance day parades and who keeps working through 2 minute silences. You notice who is holding parties and putting kids into cordoned off play areas during covid. You notice who the police are having words with and who they aren’t.

Yea it’s uncomfortable but there are some very real issues that need addressing.

If you live in the UK you need to accept it’s the police with authority, not “community leaders” and that women (all women) are equal to men

seriously? People make free will choices. It is their free will choice to follow mohammed, and their free will choice to rape, nobody said otherwise, so not really sure what your point is

@Olga009933

It's downright ignorant to assume a person's religion by their ethnic appearance.

I disagree with this and think it's actually quite fundamental. You are talking here about pattern-recognition, and calling it ignorant to recognise that there are patterns we see in the world around us, if they relate to subjects that can be sensitive.

The way to handle patterns that can be sensitive is with sensitivity, not to pretend the pattern isn't there and then name-call.

I found I could tell the difference at sight between a Kosovar Albanian and a Serb fairly well in Kosovo. If I can, then I'm sure you can too. That correlates to religious identity almost 100%. Does it make you ignorant if you know that too? No, the opposite in fact.

Some patterns have many exceptions, some have few exceptions.

But, just like assuming someone with a Australian accent is Australian isn't ignorant, (though it might turn out to be wrong, or foolish if it's a high-stakes matter), it's not ignorant, or morally defective, to observe differences and patterns in the world.

In this case, it was partly that idea that let this atrocity go on for so long.

In so many aspects of public life, we make ourselves ignorant because we can't trust ourselves to be sensitive.

This is very true. I think if you live in close contacts with groups for a while it’s easy to spot differences. Are people seriously saying you can’t tell the difference between a Pakistani Muslim and Christian or a Hindu from India? Anyone saying that undoubtedly has very little interaction with any of these groups.

It's downright ignorant to assume a person's religion by their ethnic appearance.

But people do. I shocked a Muslim colleague when I told her the three Kosovan's in the class were Muslim.

As @Feelingathomenow said you can tell the difference. Not always, but you can get the general idea of someone's ethnicity and as humans we are preprogramed to look for patterns, to identify people as one group not another.

It's not just ethnicity though, it is clothing and sometimes body language / the way people move.

I taught a group of students from Jamaica and they said when they go home they have to be careful to walk slower as they get used to walking fast in the UK.

Apparently if you walk too quickly in the market people know you have been away and the prices go up.

Although I’m digressing a little from this post, I think it is a major point in that we have been told again and again we are “all the same” so often people forget that for 99.99999999% of human history we have actively sought out and benefited from being able to tell the differences between different groups and follow a them and us narrative. We have valued the ability to differentiate. Therefore humans do this very easily

Agreed. Sons partner grew up in the Calderdale area. Went to school there, works in Leeds. She has a large extended family who live in the area. She went to university in Leeds. Her family occupations are largely NHS and police.

I believe the experiences her family have had socially and professionally both as young girls/boys and and men/women.

It is a cultural issue. Our society has evolved over centuries where the accepted norms are deeply ingrained, based on a Judaea-Christian belief set (the Christian part of this tradition is that of CofE in this case).
When any newsworthy story breaks, featuring behavioural traits that don’t align with those norms, the reporting nearly always tries to find a commonality, a collective noun that describes the section of society involved that differs from this norm.
So we have seen various demonisations of (in no particular order)

1. Roman Catholics
2. Travellers
3. Black people
4. West Indian people
5. Indian people
6. Pakistani people
7. Romanian people
8. Albanian people
9. Muslims

Over the past 70+ years.

What is not helpful now is the way that those who try to work out WHY issues have arisen in these specific groups are labelled “Racist”, which has led to an increased tolerance to bad behaviours and a reluctance to tackle the root causes, due to the fear of being labelled as racists themselves.

It is time for an honest discussion and a re-framing of what it means to be British, particularly when people apply for citizenship, and what is taught in schools.

Being a debate lord on mumsnet to prove how morally and intellectually superior you are is incredibly self serving. But carry on virtue signalling whilst tucked up in bed nice and safe in the Home Counties whilst girls without a single person in the world to care about them continue being raped and abused.

This.

I agree. We need as a society to be clearer about where are red lines are.
But we can’t have people using religion or culture as an excuse for misogynistic attitudes or actions. And we definitely can’t have authority figures such as police and social services turning a blind eye to mistreatment ( generally of women) because of culture or religion.

The hard won rights of women in this country cannot be trumped by religious or cultural ( or transgender) ideologies

I know women and men are separated during worship in mosques. That’s their religion. No one is forced to be Muslim in this country. It’s a choice. It’s not illegal to separate the sexes .
You can say it’s misogynistic but it is a free choice and it’s not impacting the rest of us .

Women aren’t allowed to be priests in Catholicism. I’m a Catholic. I might not be happy with everything about my religion but as long as it’s not causing harm to society and no one is forced to go along with it then it’s ok I think.

It’s when misogynistic thinking is not just limited to who can officiate at church services / lead the prayers in a mosque that it’s a problem.

This is wilfully ignorant or incredibly naive. You think children and adults born into Muslim families have a choice in following the religion of their family?

I don't know where the argument got there data but Pakistani males were responsible for 6.9% of all sexual assaults and 13.6% of all grooming/rape gangs yet are only 2.7% of the population, this data was only released in the last week or so.
I've already posted a link to the telegraph article from the day the data was released and has links in it to the actual police data audit if you need me to repost it let me know

Another factor is the report counts two men working together as a 'group'.

''Groups have been defined as “two or more people of any age, connected through formal or informal associations or networks, including, but not exclusive to, friendship groups”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-characteristics-of-offending/characteristics-of-group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-in-the-community-literature-review-accessible-version#offender-characteristics-1

a - that we know of
b - where the data was even collected

No - what child has a true choice in following their parents beliefs and values ?
Once a person reaches adulthood then they should have freedom to choose. If they are compelled to follow a set of beliefs they don’t agree with then that is in opposition to this country’s values.
Im not sure why you think I’m ignorant and naive? I know some Muslim / Hindu / Christian families put pressure on family members. I know for some extreme Muslims or Hindus women are compelled against their will to marry etc . That is against British values and laws .

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice ’s data is not accurate or honest

Apostates receive the death penalty in some Islamic countries. They are referred to as “so-called honour killings” here. That would be at the worst end of the spectrum, the best you could hope for would to be shunned by your whole family and community.

There is no choice.

Exactly. It's ridiculous.

I need to revisit the case again. I wasn't aware there were white perpetrators. I imagine those beasts saw alot of advantages to them as males in converting to Islam.