Three Girls (BBC 9pm)

[ASauvingnonADay]

Looking forward to watching this tonight. Feel it might be one to watch with your teenagers..

There are places where nothing has changed. I know people who work in education and social services who say that it has only got worse. Especially after so many cuts in services. There is still a massive fear of being accused of racism.

I watched this last night with dh and agree that it was very harrowing but necessary. I wept a little because while we were upstairs my 15 year old dd was upstairs safe and happy in her room tootling about doing her thing and I thank God for that.

It seems to me there was - is still - a combination of factors leading to this appalling abuse. Firstly there is the ingrained attitude that girls from 'certain' backgrounds are less deserving of help and that they somehow bring it on themselves.

Secondly there was and still is a strong reluctance to state openly that the reason these men got away with their paedophile abuse and torture is because they were all from the Asian community. There - I said it. And I''m not going to take it back. They traded on people's fear of being labelled racist and very carefully orchestrated a massive web of rape and torture.

Thirdly a sort of acceptance within the police and SS that this sort of thing 'goes on' and can't really be prevented - and indeed a collusion of sorts. The male police officer's comments for example, which suggested Holly's sexual history made her fair game - and why the hell was Holly not interviewed with a female Police Officer present? And that vile social worker's comments about her being a 'child prostitute': that term should be banned IMO. It's like 'child pornography' - it implies that the child has somehow agreed/consented/acquiesced.

Very dark viewing but important. IMO it should be shown in all schools, religious ones included.

I agree. Both my parents are retired Social Workers and they are horrified at some of the things that still go on today.
My sil works with children and she too is shocked as to how little progress has been made.
And its not always a money or cuts issue, sometimes it comes down to a bigger issue of nothing having changed, deep down.

I dislike the CSE term, it just does not seem powerful enough. It is a another reminder that if men (mainly) feel they are protected by society some will abuse this power. Catholic priests/ celebrities /care homes and with this ethnic minorities felt above the law and used this power against children.

Found it hard to watch. My heart broke for her mum and dad and their despair. Maxine Peake is excellent as Sara.

I'm in tears watching this. Mixture of anger and upset.

Disgraceful.

A lot has changed since this happened. Apart from anything else we now have a name for it - Child Sexual Exploitation

Has a lot changed? Can you explain what?

Here's an article from the Guardian from 2011. I think this perhaps explains the reasons the Guardian isn't coverning the current and recent cases.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/07/grooming-racialising-crime-tradition

nb I may be wrong about the non-coverage of recent and current cases by the national press but I have searched for reports of recent cases in the Guardian, Independent , Telegraph and haven't found any reports other than of Rochdale and Rotherham. If I am wrong and anyone has seen reports on other cases (Huddersfield, Halifax, Bristol etc etc etc) in these papers, please correct me.

www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/crime/predators-jailed-who-sexually-abused-vulnerable-halifax-schoolgirl-1-7968693

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3894200/Three-members-Somali-sex-gang-trafficked-raped-subjected-British-schoolgirls-violent-horrible-abuse-jailed-32-years.html

Okay, I have found a Guardian piece on Bristol 2016

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/01/three-men-jailed-over-bristol-child-abuse-ring

but can't find anything on Huddersfield (2017) , Oxford (2016, 2017), Halifax (2016).

We've been there before with not being able to talk about child abuse - it hasn't ended well in the past. I think those who are choosing to put "community cohesion" before truth and the victims and future victims, really need to ask themselves some hard questions.

A lot has changed since this happened. Apart from anything else we now have a name for it - Child Sexual Exploitation

Police, social workers etc now recognise that child trafficking etc exists. The voluntary sector has responded - e.g. the launch of the NWG Network (www.nwgnetwork.org/).

People haven't changed. There will always be people who exploit other people.

Imbroglio Do you think it is helpful for tackling this type of child abuse that the mainstream national press are not reporting the cases being prosecuted?

Secondly there was and still is a strong reluctance to state openly that the reason these men got away with their paedophile abuse and torture is because they were all from the Asian community. There - I said it. And I''m not going to take it back. They traded on people's fear of being labelled racist and very carefully orchestrated a massive web of rape and torture

I agree on the whole, except that Mohan Singh in his interview on LBC which I posted earlier said that he thinks it is unhelpful to refer to these sex abuse gangs as "Asian" which is used as a euphemism for Muslim.

I think people are absolutely terrified of being labelled as racist and we are now in a situation where people all dance around the issue, or ignore it, for fear of being labelled racist. Anyone who does try to publicise or discuss the issue is labelled as far-right and immediately discredited, and then round we go again....

Do you think it is helpful for tackling this type of child abuse that the mainstream national press are not reporting the cases being prosecuted?

I don't know... I have no professional connection to the issue so this is just a point of view. I wonder if it is helpful to communities to publicly identify hotspots.... It would certainly make sense to raise public awareness of the signs of exploitation and trafficking and to let people know what to do if they have concerns. It was the Sexual Health Worker identifying patterns that resulted in the realisation that the abuse was organised.

I agree with you Imbroglio

My personal opinion is that the non-reporting by the national media is being done in the name of community cohesion but that actually, this is a very flawed tactic. Community cohesion is fostered by people of different groups being treated the same and equally. Failing to report offences and convictions amongst certain groups which would make national headlines if they were amongst other groups is wrong, inequitable and will harm community cohesion in the long run.

That is aside from the issue of the effects not reporting will have on the ability to prevent children being abused in the future which, in my humble opinion, is actually more important.

Interesting discussion. To be fair I think I have regularly read about further cases of child exploitation rings in Huddersfield, Oxford etc in the Times, which has led some of the major investigations in this area - but because of the pay wall I cant prove that by providing links. There's a very good description of what happened on wikipedia here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

It explains more about the fear of the girls involved re why they continued or went back to abuse, the threats of violence against them and their famillies, the institutional failures and investigations and inquiries that followed.

I've also seen coverage on the BBC website. And I have heard a number of discussions on Womans Hour over the last few years - including one with (I think) Southall Black Sisters or another organisation that addressed the race issues involved.

None of us want to be racist, but a failure to address difficult issues because of the sensitivities badly served the victims, whose lives will be blighted by their experiences for ever. In reality though these cases need to be understood, as many of us are saying here, through other equally compelling prisms of misogyny, sexual exploitation and violence towards women as well as through the prism of class and disadvantage.

Though I cant speak for the prejudices and professionalism in social work, the police, the courts and other statutory agencies, some things are improving in terms of the education of young people in terms of concepts of consent and rape. But there is still a long way to go in terms of those parts of our country that have been left behind in deep disadvantage with poor life expectations and the continuing prevalence of domestic violence and abuse.

It was a very tough watch, I think that it was a really good portrayal of how it must have played out. You could see why Holly was vulnerable even though she came from a loving and largely functional family. They had clearly suffered a significant change in circumstances when the Dad's business failed and they lost their home and way of life. Clearly they had little choice about where to live and ended up in an area that the parents didn't know and felt was rough. Mum and dad probably became quite inward- looking and down and just focused on surviving. Holly must have felt lost and needed to fit in. By the time they realised that she wasn't just a stroppy teenager staying round her mates' and smoking fags out of the window she had already been groomed to the point where she felt she couldn't tell them what had happened, and that everything that had happened to her was somehow her fault and something they would be angry about.

It is also important to understand that children are inherently vulnerable because they are children. We have laws that state that children can't give consent to certain acts at a certain age precisely because developmentally they are not capable of making a fully informed decision. A 13 year old is very likely at a developmental stage where they are literally unable to consider the motivation that others may have for their actions. If asked 'why would those men just give you free kebabs and vodka?' The response might be 'because I like kebabs, and it's fun to drink vodka'.

Amber, the girl who the traffickers (because that is what they were - they moved these girls around the UK for the purposes of exploitation) used to recruit others was, as others have said, incredibly vulnerable. She was threatened with beatings etc but also if you think of it, from her perspective having someone new involved would 're-set' everything to the 'fun' stage. Just as an abusive partner doesn't punch you in the face on a first date, they reel you in by seeming like a good person, these men would have a period of time when they are beginning the grooming process and hiding the real outcome. For that poor kid, those couple of weeks when it was just free kebabs and vodka was about as good as life got. Unless the poor life experience and life chances of kids in the care system is addressed, and until they are seen as children rather than through the lens of adulthood this is just going to keep happening and children will be blamed for it instead of protected from it.

WoodPigeonInFlight

Agree with most of your posts, The Guardian piece made me feel ill.

Strange how some posters watched it and still queried why Holly was vulnerable in spite of being told she had no friends and found it hard in her new school, her family had fallen on hard strange new times and her Dad was on at her all the time making her feel even worse. Then being threatened etc, and others watched it and totally got immediately why these girls were all vulnerable.

IN RL across SW and police would have been the same as some posters. Not a major criticism BTW just observation.

I think the sexual workers take on it was very interesting, she didnt come at this from the angel of trying to work out if the girls were vulnerable or not - or why they did it - it was a simple line. They were underage and could not give consent full stop. NO matter what their background or reasons.

I think she should be given some huge honor in recognition of her work.

Im watching on catch up and 10 minutes in my heart is pounding. I dont think I can watch it.

One of the girls wrote the book Girl A.

It's a powerful and accurate account.

I read that book earlier this year. Although the book left me with some questions though.......

I watched this this morning having recorded it.

Christ it was tough watching, and I already knew quite a lot about it from previous TV documentaries, some work-based training and child protection training.

I agree it did seem a bit patchy in places, they didn't really have the time to go into the depth of the grooming carried out by the men. In the documentary I'd seen before the men were much more insidious, spent a long time "befriending" the girls before raping them.

Its just horrifying.

The documentary I saw before placed a lot of emphasis on the police's response initially being so poor - their take on it was that the police thought these girls were willing participants not victims, and that if they investigated further they would damage community race relations that they'd been trying to hard to improve in that area. Obviously not acceptable especially given what we know now.

I do think things have changed a lot over the years - there is much more awareness of CSE across health, education and welfare, and terminology and understanding has changed. Not soon enough though

We watched it. I didn't enjoy it and found it upsetting and I felt angry all the way through!! However, it's a good cast and I can see that they had to show the horrors of what really happened to set the scene for the upcoming episodes, so we'll see.
Great acting though, especially from the girls and I love Maxine Peake.

I thought the men acted really well, I could imagine it being a hard role to accept.

agree that the men were good in it and Maxine peake is very believable too.
must have been horrible to act those parts.

its on tonight and thursday night.

garlicansaphire Thanks for the pointer to the Times. It seems Andrew Norfolk of the Times has written some good articles and done some investigative work over the years - I will subscribe and have a search.

I have seen reports on the BBC website but for the current and recent court cases it only seems to be on local pages.

I am wondering if some people on this thread were watching the same show. No wonder girls like this are frightened to tell. Its bloody obvious why and how it all happened, what kind of back story would you need to understand this.
Ultimately they were children - underage - therefore its rape. Beyond that does it really matter?