Sexual exploitation of teenagers by (mainly) Asian gangs

[edam]

hundreds of young girls are being groomed and prostituted by gangs according to an investigation by The Times]] Only the gangs are predominantly Asian men so the authorities have been very reluctant to either talk about it or act - even now the Home Office 'has no plans' to do any research into the pattern of offending, despite a request by the safeguarding children's board in Derby, backed by Barnardos. Former MP Ann Cryer has been campaigning on this for years but was shouted down with cries of 'racism'.

Afraid Times is now behind a paywall so can't link to the full story but if you have access, it's here down the page under 'UK news'.

Strikes me that the racists here are the officials who are afraid to uphold the law or to talk about this. And that it's yet another example where racism trumps misogyny.

There have been some prosecutions - 56 men convicted in 17 cases. But sounds as if the Home Office doesn't want anyone to find out if the problem is far more widespread.

shopping centres like Meadowhall in Sheffield are big grooming grounds for these kinds of predators.
they chat girls up,buy them lunch,top up their phone then treat them as girlfriends. they then start selling these girls to other men.
my sister is local to this area and has warned dn to keep away from any asians, its a blanket statement but she says she doesnt care.
some girls do, sadly, go along with all this thinking they can handle it all.
it is shocking.

Dittany its not realy prostitution in the conventional sense, these men aren't expoliting them for financil gain as such, they are just a piece of meat for them to pass around

I worked in a school 8 years ago with a vulnerable demographic and this was happening a lot then. We had cars with asian males sat at the end of the school grounds waiting for the girls and picking them up.
I also have a family experience of this with my sister (from a good family but vulnerable as my mum was dying of cancer) meeting an asian male at the age of 14 she then went on to have 3 kids with him. It turned out he was still grooming young girls the whole time she believed she had a family with him. It is a very real and very dangerous situation for young girls. He was known to police the whole time but my sister was never notified.

I live in Sheffield and it is a major problem. IMO it is a result of the amount of sexual repression in Muslim society, Muslim women being treated as baby making machines and not as sexual beings, and white girls being percieved as slutty and "up for it". It's hard to combat it because you can't tell young girls "beware of these men" without it appearing racist.

But I think we DO need to say to these girls, beware of these men.

A MN campaign, perhaps?

Programmes like Dispatches and Panorama are usually sensationalist, like all journalism. West Yorkshire is full of racial tension and perhaps the police are wisely trying to minimise any eruptions of that tension and to continue to deal with it as a serious issue in the real world, rather than TV land

Hifi i can see where your sis is coming from !

We are in the Home Counties and had similar problems in the late 1990s with this, and also targetting learning disabled students re: drugs and sex.

But we were not allowed to talk about it in terms of 'Asian men' because that was racist, and it was hushed up.

Race is the issue because of divisions between races - from all sides - that allow situations like this to arise. We can't pretend it isn;t part of the issue.

Thank Goodness this issue is being discussed sensibly and not with the hysterical accusations of racism so often found here on MN. My faith is restored.

I have some very slight second-hand experience of some Muslim men who have very negative attitudes to women outside their own community - nothing at all on the scale of this problem, thankfully. When I was a teenager we lived for a few months in a largely Muslim area of Sheffield. There was noticeable hostility towards Western girls from some men. Cat calls, spitting, general nastiness and bullying of anyone who wasn't Muslim.

My sister and I weren't walking around wearing boob tubes and mini-skirts (not that it would have been anyone's business if we were). I was in jeans and jumpers, my sister in her school uniform of blazer, baggy brown jumper and hideous brown kilt.

A man assaulted my sister in broad daylight - got hold of her and started swearing and threatening her. Fortunately our dog had got out and heard my sister scream. He came racing round the corner and knocked the bastard flat. I do hope that man learnt his lesson - not so brave all of a sudden when confronted with a snarling, drooling Alsation-sized hound instead of a vulnerable teenage girl. I hate to think what might have happened had the dog not escaped.

I personally feel all 12/13/14 year olds are vulnerable given the kids their age likely have pocket money / curfew / no car etc

I think we should be telling girls, in fact bothe boys and girls, to keep away from these men.

I dont think it needs to be put as 'stay away from asians' at all, as i think the huge divide in com,munities only increases the problem, as if everyone avoids the other community and there is no communication the men feel they can get awayt with it, nobody will find out.

Surely we could educate, in the same way we do abolut DV that there must be something wrong with men who spend time with male friends all their own age, but are only interested in teenage schoolgirls. That you arent really somebodies girlfriend if they never let you meet or know their family, this is because they are terrified of what their mum might say or have a wife and kids at home.

I think the silence needs to be ended and we need to let young girls know the warning signs

I agree that what you're describing needs to be tackled, but it's not only non-asian women who end up exploited.

In W Yorks there is a fairly large (and very hidden) use of asian women as prostitutes (or similar) which is even harder to tackle than this problem of grooming. Obviously some men are doing this out of racism, but others just do it because that's what you do to women in their eyes.

Anne Cryer has done a lot to deal with forced marriages as well as this.

Littleducks, agree entirely. We need to educate girls and boys - surely this should be covered in PHSE or whatever it's called? Talking about healthy relationships and how to tell if something is dangerous or wrong? Should cover domestic violence, rape, harassment...

Chaotica, interesting (and shocking) post. Is anyone doing anything to help these poor women?

And agree Ann Cryer has worked very hard at some personal cost to highlight various forms of abuse.

Agree Chaotica I have worked with a few Asian girls who are stunningly beautiful who have also been passed around in the same way. then disowned by thier family's for bringing dsgrace on them

When I lived in the red light district of Bradford, as a youngish, moderately attractive woman, I can say, hand on heart, that I got absolutely zero hassle from Asian men. My observation was of young Asian men pimping and possibly being involved in the drugs trade.

However, if this IS a phenomenon, then it is dreadful and should be tackled full on. I feel distressed at the idea of very vulnerable young girls - especially those with learning difficulties - being exploited.

Reading through, I (thankfully) have no direct experience of this.

I did live in Ireland as an 18 year old in the late 1990s and I can completely relate to this concept of being seen as 'easy' and not worthy of respect.

As soon as young blokes found out I was English I was seen as fair game. Irish Catholic girls were for marrying, but English girls were 'sluts'.

I never experienced anything as extreme as this - but I was older, had good friends around me and came from a happy home life. I didn't need a nasty boyfriend to treat me like shit.

Can definitely relate to the whole idea of being 'other worldly' and dirty.

Which was ridiculous really, I had only lost my virginity a few months before!

Just wanted to say that this problem has been going on for a while now, have friends who live in this area, and they feel very let down and the perception is this is this not being tackled by the aauthorites due to fear of being racist. which they in turn see as rascist because the majority of the victims are white.

Have listened to the BBC today and been disappointed that the ''racial'' element of this has not once been mentioned
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-12137400

Jack Straw is the MP for Blackburn isn't he? His constituents would be pretty upset if he tried to pretend it doesn't happen.

Hands up to Jack Straw and ''Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Muslim youth group the Ramadhan Foundation, said the abuse was fuelled by racism in parts of the Asian community.''

Far more balls than the Judge in the case and the BBC reporting!

I just listened to Mohammed shafiq on 5 live. Really interesting and measured.

Particularly the parts about recognizing and addressing that there is in fact a problem without allowing it to become an excuse to label groups of young men

Exactly Pagwatch - there is a way to discuss this without it becoming DM jingoism.

I'm from Leicester and have seen this 1st hand