Child abuse / prostitution in Glasgow - Times investigation

[norahnamechange]

The Times has published a shocking investigation into systematic abuse / prostitution of children in the Govan area of Glasgow.
Children, some as young as 5 / 6 , are being openly sold on the streets. They come from one particular group (the Roma community) and just as with Rotherham and other towns where we had systematic organised abuse, there appears to be the same lack of effective response from the Police / social services for fear of appearing racist / targeting a particular community?
I can't cut and paste but here's a link to one of their articles (behind a paywall):
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/govanhill-child-sex-trade-there-are-so-many-it-s-easy-pickings-for-child-abusers-m2swzc63h

Utterly appalling

Who are the men buying these kids? We need a Nordic model approach to criminalize the punters and pimps with heavy enforcement. Cut off the demand!

I agree with that FloraFox, although I'd also be concerned that the children would just be moved to a less well policed area and it would all continue. You'd have to be aware of that and be prepared to follow the problem

Nonibaloni I dont think this is about lack of money or resources actually. This has been going on many years- all through the boom years when public spending was huge. There is something else going on here:
Inheritent sexism/ classism/ racism ("teenage girls are off the rails/ can't be controlled/ are too difficult to deal with" "poor children from shit families will just end up with shit lives, what can we do?" "X group don't care what happens to their children/ are too hard to deal with so what's the point"

As for needing or not to pimp your children there are so many issues at here (and yes, some of them are cultural) that that's just a massive simplification

I feel sick just reading this thread

Has this country learnt nothing from Jimmy Saville, Rotherham, etc? We do not want a culture of child abuse! Those children need to be removed from their parents immediately and taken somewhere safe. The parents and whomever else is involved should be locked up until they name names. I am normally not so harsh, but this has really riled me!

bubble I agree completely. The belief that “these girls were never innocent” is prevalent at every level in the important institutions. Also “better spend the money on people you can help” I was trying to avoid police bashing. I don’t think there all bad and they can only do what is allowed by their organisation. It disgusts me. And hopefully in my life time it will be what “domestics” we’re not that long ago.
I think support and intervention needs to start in utero tbh. No doubt the female victims are getting pregnant and perpetrating the cycle. I can hardly bare to think of the life of these children.

If the police start cracking down on punters heavily the demand will at least be reduced.

Do you think though? I think it will just pushed down to even darker places ie online chat rooms

FloraFox
Who are the men buying these kids? We need a Nordic model approach to criminalize the punters and pimps with heavy enforcement. Cut off the demand!

I agree with all your comments Flora, but we don't need a Nordic model to deal with this. Applying the existing law should in theory crack down on this.

I'm actually scared that by - quite rightly - exposing this to light, media coverage is also telling people exactly where they can go to to buy children and get away with it.

I hope beyond hope there is a big police operation focusing on this whilst all of this media focus is going on.

So there's an underage child outside a pub offering a blow job to a middle-aged man and there's NOTHING that can be done? Obviously this is parental child neglect regardless of whether they are involved in the pimping - which face it they must be otherwise why don't they give a fuck where their child is? So prosecute, take the child into care, prosecute the father, mother whoever else is facilitating it - make life so intolerable that maybe they don't see lBritain as some pushover option where no one will do anything because we couldn't care less or we care more about waking up a hornets nest. I actually feel so angry I am having thoughts I have never had before - I hate that people are getting away with this on our streets and there's this kind of shrugging acceptance of that's just the way things are - its culture - well fuck that - these appalling, appalling people who are pimping out and consuming these young children's lives. A 5 year old boy in his vest seen day in day out being picked up by men - SURELY something can be done to rescue that child?? Sorry incoherent with rage and I know that I'm not coming up with anything constructive.

I was also going to ask if it was Govanhill rather than Govan, I know someone who lives nearby and she told me a few years ago the streets are awash with people trying to sell children :(

Couple of updates.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/children-being-sold-sex-deprived-11538805

www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/govanhill-child-prostitution-claims-investigated-13918301

Govanhill is in Sturgeon's constituency. You/ we could write to her but I'm not sure the welfare of the residents of Govanhill is a major concern for her.

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2016/09/21/rats-filth-cockroaches-nicola-sturgeon-constituency

thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/sturgeons-constituency-biggest-slum-in-scotland

Groups of women begging under the control of a gang master

It's infuriating when people give them money. I appreciate that the individual woman may suffer abuse if she doesn't get enough, and that's awful. But a lot more women will suffer if begging is profitable - driving gangs to traffic more and more people to beg. There is a reason why Shelter and other charities who work with people living on the streets tell you not to give cash.

Thanks lass, interesting articles

To address some questions further upthread, many organisations have tried to prevent and intervene.

The council used to have play leaders at school gates to pick children up straight from school and take them to play with a giant parachute so they couldn't be trafficked straight from school - parents stopped sending them to school.

One particular school head always has an online appeal for preschool/orchard games type resources as many of the children can't speak English so can't access the curriculum - this only really works if it's reinforced at home and in school holidays.

The police do what they can, trust me they do, but are met with a wall of silence.

Local people feed the children. Local mem chase and fight pimps/punters (not saying this is a good thing, but being offered a 5 year old boy is going to provoke any decent human being).

The salvation army runs a Christmas appeal, like an escape fund.

The children sadly know no different, and so are often defensive.

Govanhill generally needs the reset button pressed. Nicola Sturgeon should be ashamed.

It is appalling and stomach-turningly awful.

This is a prime example how pernicious 'bothering' is - I get the impression that there is an institutional feeling of because they are often Romani or other Eastern European children 'it's in their culture' or that it is somehow not quite as awful.

While I accept that existing laws should in theory be plenty enough to stop this, I do agree criminalising the punters and pimps more, targeting the 'market', would seem sensible rather than somehow penalising the women and children who are pretty powerless in all this.

Reset button would be good

ASAS I don't know if you can answer this, but why is it child prostitution that is resorted to and not mugging/shoplifting/burglary etc?

Without sounding glib it's demographic. Women and children = sex slaves. Young men = car wash, domestic servitude, drugs, burglary or battling to become the latest pimp on the block.

Oh good gawd I really wish I hadn't read this before going to bed I feel sick. Surely we can do something about this?

@FloraFox really?
I don’t know many people in the UK who’ve never been to school, or only for 4 years, or have 7-8 kids, living in mud huts or shanty towns or empty buildings, with no running water or electricity, digging through bins for scraps of food etc.

And on the other side you have the ones with palaces and gold toilets and shit. Built from stealing, drug dealing, prostitution, loans etc.

While I accept that existing laws should in theory be plenty enough to stop this, I do agree criminalising the punters and pimps more, targeting the 'market', would seem sensible rather than somehow penalising the women and children who are pretty powerless in all this

I don't follow this. Who has suggested penalising the children? We don't need an anti- punter law to deal with this. There are so many things wrong with this you can take your pick. Now I'm as fully signed up as anyone for an anti- punter law but in the meantime use the law there is. These are serious crimes.

The articles I listed also refer to slum landlords in Govanhill. The Scottish Government has brought in a mountain of regulation for the private rented sector. It was pretty much acknowledged the motivation for most of it was conditions in Govanhill. Yet Govanhill seems as bad as it ever was.

Why is this?

Heartbreaking