Suella Braverman vows to stamp out grooming gangs behind organised child sex abuse

[IwantToRetire]

The Home Secretary, writing in The Mail on Sunday, pledges to 'track down and punish the grooming gangs with the same sense of mission and determination' used to pursue the murderers of Stephen Lawrence, the black British teenager who was killed in a racially motivated attack at a bus stop in South London in 1993.

Ms Braverman, who was born in Harrow, in North-West London, to a Kenyan mother and Mauritian father, writes: 'The time has come to make right one of the greatest injustices seen in Britain in modern times. The systematic rape, exploitation and abuse of young girls by organised gangs of older men – and the disgraceful failure of the authorities to act despite ample evidence – is a stain on our country.'

A Buddhist, Ms Braverman describes the 'perpetrators' as 'groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani, who hold cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11928629/SUELLA-BRAVERMAN-mission-ensure-really-no-hiding-place-gangs-grooming-young-girls.html

I am not sure if this is just the DM take on what she said, or if it accurately reflects what she said.

If she did say this and not talk about how men of all cultures, given the opportunity, have and will exploit young women, then she is letting down all the women who are exploited.

https://mobile.twitter.com/MaggieOliverUK/status/1642453518211481603

I tend to think the DM (being racist) will set up MPs. So SB would have been saying blah blah going after all grooming gangs and they’ll ask a question “what do you think about Asian grooming gangs?” And then they will publish her response as if it is all she said.

Would have preferred that she said all types of grooming gangs will be targetted and we will help / ensure that local councils and police do not feel unable to progress investigations because of cultural reasons. blah. blah.

Don't you think the others already are targeted then? And these girls don't deserve a targeted investigation into their own unique set of circumstances?

Thanks for the link, OP.

Braverman also said this (which I should have linked when I quoted her):

Rishi Sunak criticises political correctness over grooming gangs
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65160429

It comes after Home Secretary Suella Braverman said in towns around the country, "vulnerable white girls living in troubled circumstances have been abused, drugged, raped, and exploited" by networks of gangs of rapists, which she claimed were "overwhelmingly" made up of British-Pakistani males.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/maggie-oliver-38b58639_suella-braverman-vows-to-stamp-out-child-activity-7048222908648685569-3Igo?trk=public_profile_share_view

The press release (as opposed to what Braverman said out loud) is making the right noises.

Let's see if this turns into something effective.

We can but hope.

I am really not sure of the point you are trying to make.

Winston Churchill's government ratified the 1951 UN Refugee Convention on the 11th March 1954 with the support of all parties in parliament. On that day it became UK law.

In any country International Law becomes domestic law at the point that country ratifies it.

Are you saying that somehow Churchill ratified the convention but he did it wrong so it should not have become UK law and the many 1000s of times that it has been stated that in parliament since that the UK government is taking account of the Convention on Refugees were wrong?

Many of the laws that we all follow in the UK do not have specific legislation from parliament, in fact the vast majority have not been through parliament at all. That is not the case with the refugee convention though.

For the avoidance of doubt and further confusion, presumably when you say you illegal migrants you don't mean asylum seekers who by the definitions in the 1951 Convention cannot be illegal?

Yep, her and the Dalai Lama, separated at birth.

thank you, I do not know why I could not find that

Could you please stop asserting inaccurate paraphrasing. The 1951 Convention doesn’t say that asylum seekers ‘cannot be illegal’.

Because I have already quoted Article 31 from it which does in fact say asylum seekers (refugees) can be unlawfully in a country and need to show good cause for their illegal entry or presence in a country of refuge.

I was supported by Maggie when I was accused of a hate crime for describing a man who was grooming 13/14 yo girls in Calderdale. It is a very difficult topic to navigate.

I think the optics aren’t right for a lot of people- the ‘oppressor/oppressed’ are the wrong way around.

If it were gangs of white European men grooming Pakistani Muslim girls for sexual exploitation for decades, everyone would be all over it, outraged, saying it needed to factor in cultural nuance, requiring a specific, targeted response, factoring the racial and religious aggravation, blah blah.

It just doesn’t fit properly. It threatens moral certainties.

I agree. It shows that intersectionality is a bit more complex than most people think. That low class + female can more than offset any white privilege in certain areas or circumstances.

Sadly I know you're right Endless Tea. It's quite depressing really, the wrong sort of victim mentality.

Would you be happier if I said that how an asylum seeker arrives in a country is irrelevant to their status as an asylum seeker and therefore labelling them as illegal migrants is also irrelevant?
So someone arriving by a route that would otherwise be illegal is permitted to seek asylum in just the same way as someone arriving by a route that is deemed to be legal (if such a route exits?)

@jgw1 I think the way you’ve derailed this thread is despicable

Part of the problem is the complete breakdown of social services and support that should be working to stop young girls who are vulnerable are getting support.

I was going to write that one of the problems is that children in care are, at 16, left to their own devices, and rather than a supporte service will be offere accommodation in what is know as unregulated accommodation. In one area the police admitted that they could help a young woman by returning her to the unregulated accommodation that she had been allocated knowing that within that hostel / shared housing their would be drug dealers, and pimps. (Not forgetting in some areas where refuge provision for victims of domestic abuse have been cut, and DV is dealt with as a "housing" issue, survivors of domestic abuse are given space in unregulated accommodation.)

Which ever area, which ever demographic group is part of gang exploiting young women, the majority of the time is that there are young women who are without protection or support and are easy to exploit.

But have to say that have just found another Government announcement (which means they have been listening although a bit slowly) that young people in care can not be moved to one of these (money rackers for unscrupulous landlords) at 16, but in future only at 18. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-bans-unregulated-accommodation-for-young-people-in-care

Which is only a fraction better, because the reality is this form of housing shouldnot ever be used by local government in any circumstance.

Another area of exploitation of young girls is the use of them by drug gangs, which not only puts them in danger, but also means they are sexually exploited by the gangs. And this is where people are intimidated for even reporting that this is happening because of the fear of violence from the gangs.

I doubt that there will ever be a time when there aren't some children who are vulnerable, but if the system were able to offer them proper support and encouragement to move onto adult life, there will always be men, whether individual pimps or gangs who will exploit them.

The Government needs to act much earlier, rather than waiting for the exploitation to happen. They need to preempt the circumstances by ensuring there are proper services for young people who need support and care.

The girls targeted by the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs aren’t all in care though are they? A lot of them are still at home with their parents. Focusing on social services would mean these girls get missed.

It has come to my attention that Braverman faces a GE selection meeting on Wednesday of this week.
It all makes sense now.

Unregulated accomodation and single service children's homes were part of the problem. It shocks me that they got away with this with children literally being sent from different authorities, including my own, straight into the lions den. Not the whole problem but certainly part of it. There were a lot of failures all round from police / social serves etc which allowed the perpetrators to keep going. For 40 years or so.

Yes lots of them were at home. It's a small proportion who were in care.

They don't want justice for abused white girls. And it shows. Grim.

Children should be “looked after” up until 21, IMO, not 18 and not 16.

When I was in foster care, I was expected to move into a council flat from about 16? Which was absolutely and utterly ridiculous. They found me a flat and I remember being shocked and utterly terrified. The flat was in a shady part of town, ground floor, I wouldn’t have felt safe now let alone age 16.

This government and governments before keep letting down vulnerable children and it has got worse under austerity. I don’t trust this government to deal with it - they’ll say the right things to win the next election and you can guarantee it’ll be forgotten once they get the keys to number 10 again. I say that because they’re not actually going for evidence based policy on this.