Muslim Rape Gangs

In three of the areas affected by the sex abuse scandal, victims’ families and campaigners say children are still targeted, and a culture of fear endures

It’s just past 3pm in Rotherham town centre when groups of teenagers make the short walk from Rotherham sixth-form college to the bus station interchange. Some huddle inside, laughing together at videos on their phones. Others linger outside, waiting to meet friends and boyfriends. It’s a standard scene in any town on a midweek afternoon. But for some people in the town, teenagers congregating there is causing concern.

Pressure is growing on Lucy Powell MP to resign, following her sneering dismissal of public anger over the ongoing Pakistani-majority rape gang scandal. During an appearance on the BBC’s Any Questions, commentator Tim Montgomerie asked Powell if she had seen the recent Channel 4 documentary on the rape gangs — a programme which highlighted the indifference of police and social services to these crimes, for fear of upsetting “community relations”.

Groomed

h/t XC

First we were told there couldn’t be a national public inquiry into grooming gangs, because there were going to be at least five local ones. This week, considerable confusion emerged about whether there would even be any of those. Buried within a statement about tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation generally, Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, announced with smooth customer-service rhetoric that “following feedback from local authorities”, instead of local inquiries, there might be “more bespoke work”. She added that “a flexible approach” would be taken, potentially including “local victims’ panels or locally led audits of the handling of historical cases”. It sounded as if she were talking about a kitchen renovation, not a matter of burning public interest.

Labour has dropped its plans for five local grooming gang inquiries.

In January, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, told MPs that the Government would provide £5 million to support up to five initial local inquiries modelled on the judge-led one into grooming gangs in Telford.

However, on Tuesday Jess Phillips, a Home Office minister, announced that “following feedback” the Government would adopt a “flexible approach” where the money would be available for local councils to use as they wished to support grooming gang work.

This is evil.

Convicted grooming gang child rapist Ajaz Ahmed has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for child rape and a multitude of other child sex offences, including organising gang rapes of young girls in Rochdale.

Over the past few weeks, politicians, journalists, and commentators have expressed outrage that gangs of mostly Pakistani Muslim men have been raping British girls for years—and that many have not been punished. Many in these institutions have had every opportunity to help shut down this abuse over the last two decades, but they’re only speaking out now because it’s safe to jump on the bandwagon.

To those who have finally found a conscience, I ask: Where were you 20, or even 10, years ago?

Because when I tried to tell the world about this scandal, no one wanted to listen.

A prominent Sikh group has called on the home secretary to extend her grooming gangs inquiry claiming that non-Muslim girls have been considered “fair game” by some perpetrators.

The Network of Sikh Organisations UK (NSO) has written to Yvette Cooper urging her to allow the review to examine race and religion as “contributing factors in these terrible crimes”.