Abused women and children cannot be used as pawns in power politics - Karen Ingala Smith

[IwantToRetire]

... We cannot allow the response to sexual and domestic violence and abuse to be hijacked by those with the deepest pockets, the loudest voices and those with nefarious agendas, however compelling they sometimes are. We cannot refuse to make the links between child sexual exploitation, pornography and prostitution. A society that condones the purchase of ‘consent’ to sexual access is one where men’s entitlement and women’s objectification and where sexual exploitation is normalised.

We need to believe that men’s violence against and abuse of women, girls and children is not inevitable and act accordingly. Whilst our goals and actions must be across party political divides, they must be set without prejudice, be victim-centred and implemented with determination. Abused women and children cannot be used as pawns in power politics.

Full article https://kareningalasmith.com/2025/01/08/abused-women-and-children-cannot-be-used-as-pawns-in-power-politics

@Atissues but the point is the amendment would have killed the bill they were voting on, and wouldn't have actually guaranteed a new inquiry, so I think Rosie was right to vote no. It was just the Tories trying to make political capital, and a depressing number of people have fallen for it.

Starmer abstained from the vote

votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/division/1900#notrecorded

Same with Social Care. Streeting is being attacked for setting up an Inquiry which won't report for 3 years . Meaning nothing will be done about funding elderly care til after the next election. People are furious and rightly so.
If Starmer had announced another Inquiry into grooming gangs no doubt Badenoch would accuse him of kicking the can down the road. That's her job of course.

We all know why Farage and Badenoch explicitly want an inquiry that only focuses on men of Pakistani origin. Because some of the excuses given by these men will be culturally specific, so they can then use them to attack all people from that background.

But it's all nonsense. A posh Cambridge student justifying the rape of a "drunken slag" is no different to an man justifying the rape of "an immoral white slag". They're all just excuses.

We don't need another enquiry.

Unless it's social care. In which case let's have review after review and never do anything at all except have a review to report - funny enough - just BEFORE the next general election. Just fancy that!

I agree although I think a lot of people (including posters on mumsnet) prefer to believe that there is something qualitatively different between what was said about the girls in Rotherham and what authorities said about Saville’s victims. As far as I can see the only common denominator people who abuse women and children have is their sex but saying that seems to ruffle feathers. Calling girls slags bc you’re “woke” is apparently far worse than just run of the mill sexism.

I don't agree with everything she says, but that violence and entitlement by men towards women and girls is rooted in our society and little effort is made to uproot it is sadly a fact.
Just a point: Ingala Smith cites 'Catholic and Christian churches' - Catholics are Christians, so maybe Protestant/Non-Conformist is what she meant?

So why did Starmer abstain?

I guess in the future he can truthfully say he didn’t vote against an enquiry. I’m not sure I’d be happy if I was an MP who voted as told but against my conscience.

I think they should follow the recommendations and have an enquiry. It’s the right thing to do as many girls (now women in many cases) and parents want one.

Andy Burnham apparently wants an enquiry too according to the news today.

Safeguarding is not right wing - Ash Regan

For any functioning society, inflicting unimaginable pain on children on an alarming scale seems unimaginable. Yet, the evidence has been in front of us for years – so why has immediate action to ensure the safeguarding of children – and vulnerable adults – not been a pressing priority?

The urgency of the situation cannot be overstated. Ten years have passed since Professor Alexis Jay’s damning report from her 2014 investigation into the Rotherham child sexual abuse scandal, and two years on her twenty recommendations of the final report of the broader Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, there has been a failure in seeing any tangible action. Why?

We must ensure these recommendations are implemented fully and without further delay. In parallel, an investigation into why no action has been taken must happen but it is critical that a line is now drawn – no more children should be failed by a society that should protect them.

From a much longer article published by Wings Over Scotland
https://wingsoverscotland.com/safeguarding-is-not-right-wing/

So much this! I want to scream every time I read someone (not on FWR so far) not my Nigeling the white British men who gang rape children, as if they're kinder and gentler than the horrible Pakistani men who gang rape children. They're all sadists! What do you think sadists do to their rape victims? They don't sit around singing love songs to them while the other men take their turns. And like other men with fetishes, the sadistic acts escalate. Almost everyone I know who was trafficked was sadistically tortured. They're all f'n sadists.

"A posh Cambridge student justifying the rape of a "drunken slag" is no different to an man justifying the rape of "an immoral white slag". They're all just excuses."

Not true in the eyes of British law, @HPFA. Racially and/or religiously aggravated crimes carry heavier legal penalties and longer sentences.

...and victims' witness statements make clear that many of the crimes we're talking about were both those things: racially and religiously aggravated. Girls were targeted because they were 'white trash', and also because they were non-Muslim and therefore innately impure, and worth less than Muslim girls.

There's always an excuse.

The girls and women ravaged by the rape for profit gangs in my region are targeted by their abusers and dismissed by the authorities, because they're trash.

The rape for profit gangs here are white. SS know them. The police know them. The schools know them. The hospitals know them. Past victims know them and live in fear, moving away, keeping their heads down.

Why is this continuing? It's not because police are scared of being called racist. It never has been.

It's because the police see rape for profit gangs as useful and their child victims as trash.

There are many different forms and methods by which sexual abuse occurs. One doesn't negate or rule out the possibility of another.

I agree that there is often a strong class issue at work, with white working-class girls being seen as less important by those in authority.

That doesn't mean that there isn't ALSO sometimes a racial element in selecting victims of other forms of abuse.

Neither does it preclude the FACT (witnessed to by dozens of those actually involved) that fear of accusations of racism DID significantly affect the response to the latter type of crimes by those in authority, including the police.

It's not either/or. Unfortunately there's room for both.

I know what the police said wrt their fear of being called racist. But I don't believe them.

How did their "fear of being called racist" impact on other crimes? Theft? Car crime? Assault? What were their Stop and Search stats over this time? The abuse of girls by these gangs continues. Are police still afraid of being seen a racist? Over a decade on from it being recognised as the disgusting scandal it is?

I want to see recommendations being implemented. I want to see what works and what doesn't. I want police and legal services to learn how to implement justice and protect victims. I'm glad that something might happen even though I don't believe the police when they say "they were afraid". They weren't.

The funny, well not really of course because this never ending abuse of women is heartbreaking, is that all these well there is an element of racism, well there is an element of class, or whatever, are all arguements that in fact benefit men.

They benefit men because it diverts away from the same issue. That the problem is men.

It doesn't change what is happening to women, which is their exploitation and abuse by men.

To go on and on about the racist element (even if it is true part of the time) when Muslim men are involved is in fact to say that sexual abuse by Muslim men is somehow worse than abuse by white men, or Black men.

Its a bit like those Victorian scare stories about white slave traders. Many of which were spread to do exactly that.

That sexual abuse by men of another race, or for some another religion is some how worse than sexual abuse by someone of the same race or religion.

As if does sexual abuse or exploitation of Black women by white men is somehow not so terrible.

These skewing of the issue just gives men, and society, and Parliament more option not to about the core issue.

Male exploitation of women and girls.