To think the roots of the grooming gangs go back to failures from the 1950s on?

[Carla786]

I was reading Hina Husain's excellent article here and it made me think

https://unherd.com/2025/06/mirpuris-and-the-problem-of-integration/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

that discussion of the roots of the grooming gangs tends to focus on Blair's failed multiculturalism policies, local council/police etc failings.

But what rarely gets talked about is why and how large parts of the northern Mirpuri Pakistani communities were allowed to get to such a self-segregated and dysfunctional state to begin with.
Why was there no research in the 1950s-60s on the clan systems, misogynistic practices prevalent in rural Mirpuri villages when they were encouraged to immigrate? Why PMs from Wilson, Heath, Thatcher etc never appear to make integration of such communities a priority to some extent?

Most stuff just seems to blame PC culture & Tony Blair, who do share a huge amount of blame, but less is asked about why this situation, clearly full of potential issues, was never addressed much from the 60s to 1997...

Yes, I agree. The people who decided that Britain needed to bring in hundreds of thousands of people from its former colonies were never going to be directly affected.

People with wealth and power don't live in multicultural neighbourhoods. They don't compete for jobs or housing and they don't have to watch their neighbourhoods change.

Exactly i remember in college there were a few “woke” girls on my course always loudly airing their far left opinions that everything was racist, homophobic transphobic etc. No coincidence they had rich daddies and lived in gated communities.

I imagine this will change as mass immigration starts to affect more and more people who were unaffected before

Yes. The people who orchestrated this should be held criminally responsible for the grooming gangs. I’m not aagainst all immigration but bringing in large numbers of people from clan based misogynistic societies was really unforgivable.

And for what? What have we gained?

Well human rights laws mean anyone can rock up now -it was no different in the past, you couldn’t ban one group /religion/ ethnicity /sex then and you can’t now

Yes, the lawyer class have really stitched us up.

I think we should adopt the Australian policy. You're only allowed in if you've got skills we need.

No-one really cared about the white girls either.

If you look at my earlier posts, I have acknowledged that Sikh, Hindu & also Muslim girls were abused.

I've repeatedly posted about the fact that Hindus & Sikhs tended to integrate better here & possible reasons why- again, please read my earlier posts before criticising. I initially compared to West Indians because I was thinking of the 50s & 60s & many Hindus & Sikhs tended to come later.

Why did people decide that in the 50s and 60s, though? It wasn't because of perceived 'wokeness' I don't think. More a desire to bring labour without really thinking about consequences.

And obviously, Indians from Uganda, West Indians etc did tend to integrate well.

The issue wasn't just bringing people from colonies. It was bringing the most fundamentalist, rural etc types who were least culturally compatible and likely to integrate

Well the people who orchestrated it in the 1950s and 1960s are probably often dead by now..

Great post @TempestTost
Re Sikhism though, rural Punjabi Sikhs DO sometimes have issues of 'izzat' (honour) which have led to things like forced marriage. Sexual abuse & DV do seem to be issues too.
Not as big, but it's important not to discount. I think often abuse in Sikh community was ignored as it tended to mainly affect girls & women in community (parallels to others).

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-59375954&ved=2ahUKEwiUxdCSsM-SAxV1dUEAHdEjI2oQFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2CT1hZFNiyBodZ-a3r88X9

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38833804&ved=2ahUKEwjhpravsM-SAxVtUEEAHW3IAbYQFnoECFAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0bUCOBsiu6qwqrzbQ60O2

Sikhs do not tend to integrate in the sense of intermarriage, many Hindus & Orthodox Jews still tend to marry others from community and integrate well. As you say, the issue is when the community-based intermarriage is baser around a tight village clan network or kin group via cousin marriage, rather than just nationality/religion..

I understand re your grandfather-in-law but with respect, anecdotal evidence does not dismiss the broader claim that Sikhs who came to Britain, and Hindus, tended to be more educated etc

'From what I’ve observed Sikh women have far more parity in their marriages as they do not practice polygamy. They are able to have more influence generally speaking. The Islamic practice of having multiple wives is a means of controlling and disempowering women. It’s by design.'

• I agree polygamy is bad but I think this is a red herring. Most Pakistani Muslims, including the ones who came here from Mirpur, are monogamous.

'And the idea that India has an “out of control” rape problem compared to everywhere else is a common misconception. On a per capita basis, India’s reported rape rate is actually lower than many Western countries (of course underreporting is an issue). It’s still a huge problem but I don’t think you are being entirely accurate in what you are saying.'

• what you say is technically true, but the issue is there is believed to be massive underreporting.

'I’ve spent 3 months living in India and dispute your characterisation of India having a severe rape problem. And question why you are pushing this agenda…'

• what 'agenda' do you think I have? I don't have animosity towards India, it's one of my favourite countries. That doesn't mean I'll ignore its flaws.

And is living in the huge country of India for 3 months really enough to be able to dismiss the claim it has a severe rape problem?

Re Islam : my theory about the grooming gangs is that they are an example of the honour-based, clan-obsessed & hostile to anyone else society that Islam came from in Arabia & ironically tried to curb.
This imo is why a lot of Muslim societies are unstable: because they retain the tribal, kin-based obsession which Muhammad actually criticised, saying that skin colour & whether someone is Arab or not shouldn't matter. Non-tribal Muslim societies tend to function better.

The Taliban are a good example of how tribal codes can dominate religion — many of their policies reflect Pashtunwali (the ancient tribal code of the Pashtuns) much more than Islamic law. The grooming gangs fit this pattern.

What's your theory about the grooming gangs that do not consist of men from the group you are particularly interested in? The priests, the police officers, the pillars of the community, the married with two perfect, blonde children and a perfect, blonde wife, the musicians, charity workers, teachers, builders, cab drivers, accountants, bar managers, doctors and every other permutation of men that also connect with one another over their shared urges and abuse of women and girls?

You 'forgot' about the Police doing the same to those girls. And then implied it was still the fault of another group that they did it.

I care about all victims of abuse. Of course lots of men abuse, and cover up.

But the grooming gangs was unprecedented in terms of how the entire communities covered them up. There is no parallel in other immigrant groups.

I didn't pretend to forget for some malicious reason, I genuinely did. I've posted upthread myself about the police saying the girls should have been 'drowned at birth', I'm not sympathetic to them.

It's reasonable to say the UK Mirpuri Pakistani culture seems to have been conducive to the community covering up sexual abuse, as well as to encouraging views of white girls & non Muslim and non Pakistani girls as worthless & immoral. Just as the Irish Catholic culture of priestly infalllibility helped to cover up sexual abuse.

Saying some cultures are more likely to enable sexual abuse in various ways isn't denying that it happens elsewhere.

But Pakistani men DO offend out of proportion to their size of the UK population. The grooming gangs were an unprecedented tragedy and it's reasonable for this thread to focus on that

Importing clan based cultures with a misogynistic mindset has harmed British society, not just in the grooming gangs but in the rise of sectarian politics and fraud in local government and creating parallel communities which has damaged community cohesion.

I think the motive for bringing these people in was cheap labour, simple as that. But the consequences have been dire.

Agree strongly with this. Politicians obsessed with cheap labour set the whole cycle rolling.

I agree that it's definitely not just about colonialism, racism or the history of the Indian subcontinent. If it was, then in England we'd equally see British Chinese grooming gangs, Black British grooming gangs, British Indian grooming gangs etc, but we don't (or at least not any comparable in scale). Obviously, not all British Pakistani men are like that and I don't intend to demonise anyone because of their background or tar everyone of Pakistani heritage with the same brush. But clearly the community needs to do better rather than turn a blind eye to CSE.

100%. I worked for 5 years on the UK’s independent inquiry into CSA and despite the disproportionate focus by the media and some areas of society on the ethnicity of those involved in eg Rochdale and Rotherham (not taking anything away from the suffering of the kids involved there), white males predominantly and overwhelmingly comprised both the offenders and those in authority turning a blind eye, failing in duties, or outright covering up CSA from the 50s to the 00s/10s.

The “UK’s independent inquiry into CSA” has frequently been criticised for not focussing enough on the grooming gang phenomenon. Maggie Oliver called it a PR exercise and a cover up. She and some of the victims said it was “tokenistic”. Of course you’re going to defend your own work.

The amount of time allocated for the segment on organised child sex abuse is also under attack.
Ms Gallagher QC told the inquiry, which is being held on Zoom: "Three weeks were allocated to allegations concerning two male Catholic boarding schools but only two weeks allocated to child abuse in organised networks described by the Children's Commissioner as affecting every city, town and village in the UK.
"One of those I represent said to me this morning 'isn't this a case of some victims are more important than others and is this even a class issue?'"
Ms Gallagher QC acts for the Centre for Women's Justice but was also speaking on behalf of other parties including Parents Against Child Exploitation, The Maggie Oliver Foundation, Sarah Champion MP and Bristol Council.
She said the representation of victims was "tokenistic" and one victim who did give evidence was rushed by the inquiry, ironically when she was talking about the difficulties of giving evidence at a criminal trial.
Defending the approach taken, lead counsel Henrietta Hill QC said victims had been encouraged to come forward from six geographical areas where the inquiry is focusing.
However she said it was "understandable" they couldn't identify any who could give evidence on the themes being considered "given the very contemporaneous focus of this investigation".
She added "there would have been significant safeguarding issues".

https://news.sky.com/story/victims-attack-tokenistic-inquiry-into-organised-child-exploitation-12080433

So no, the dismissive whataboutery isn’t going to fly here. HTH.

Statistical analysis is so important but is frequently misunderstood or ignored.

Hindu and indian culture does not view non hindu women as inferior. Also children are off bounds sexually. In Islam it is not so. Hence the predominantly Pakistani involvement. It is happening even now

CSA is not the same as CSE. Yes, most perpetrators of CSA are white men, because we live in a white majority country. But CSE is linked to clan-based cultures and the Casey report has shown that Pakistani heritage men are disproportionally involved as perpetrators of CSE. This is a pattern that has repeated in dozens of towns and cities across the UK.

I sometimes think that mixing up CSA and CSE is part of the cover up.

Yes per head of population I think there is a problem with Pakistani heritage men moreso involved with CSE, or there was

CSA as a gneral blanket term is perpetrated more by white men of course

Its important when researching and find out reasons and protections to separate out opportunistic CSA events, to familial CSA, to CSE groups.

So a teacher would fall under the first category perhaps, seeking out individual children and preying on them, hes not family

A step dad, long term abuse of the children would be the second category

Organised criminal gangs/grooming gangs would be latter category

Who are the people most involved in these categories over all? How do we spot them and protect against them?