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On-street grooming
In tackling child grooming, we must understand the social and cultural dynamics that are contributing towards it. This requires contextualization, ownership and the initiation of honest conversation
The sexual exploitation of young people, for either money or gratification, takes place in all communities and abusers come from a wide range of ethnic and religious backgrounds.
However, a new pattern of abuse, referred to as ‘on-street grooming’, has emerged in recent years. In these cases, the abusers seem to be mainly British-Pakistani men with the victims being young white girls.
The modus operandi of the abusers is to drive around in flashy cars, pick up young adolescent girls who are hanging around and offer them cigarettes, alcohol, and the promise of a good time. Once some trust has been built and a relationship established, sexual abuse begins.
Victims are often passed between friends and in some cases cash is exchanged. Many of the young girls involved do go along voluntarily up to a certain stage, but are often trapped in a cycle of abuse before they can suspect anything sinister.
This is a pattern of abuse that I often heard about, growing up in the
Of particular interest to political commentators have been the religious backgrounds of the abusers. This point has not been missed by the far-right either, and extremist organisations such as the BNP have incorporated this into their increasingly Muslim-centric propaganda.
They have sought to present sexual abuse of non-Muslim girls by Muslim men, as a practice inspired and encouraged by Islam itself.
This worrying phenomenon has also been explored in a number of recent, hard-hitting TV programmes. The BBC aired one a few days ago called ‘Groomed for Sex’ presented by Adil Ray, this followed a Channel Four production, which aired a few weeks ago, called ‘Britain’s Sex Gangs’ presented by Tazeen Ahmad. Both programmes touched upon the socio-cultural context within which such abusers operate and the different factors that shape their mentality.
In Islam, any kind of sexual activity before marriage is strictly forbidden. Therefore, no one can claim that this type of sexual abuse is encouraged or sanctioned by the Islamic faith. In fact, even being alone with a member of the opposite sex, whom one is not related to, is frowned upon by conservative Muslims.
However, the cultural environment in which these men are raised was pointed to by a number of the interviewees in the aforementioned programmes.
Common in all cases has been the fact that the abusers come from well-established and close-knit British-Pakistani communities originating from Azad Kashmir. In these family orientated communities, old traditions are maintained and virtues such as hard work, loyalty and social responsibility are promoted.
However, segregation between the sexes is also enforced from an early age; sex itself is seen as a taboo topic and never discussed at home and women are often expected to behave in a subservient fashion. At the same time, the young men are also exposed to a highly sexualised popular culture where women are objectified.
So blame can be attributed to culture and with culture being informed, at least partially, by religion, some would argue that religion isn’t entirely blame free either. However, we must remember that we are largely talking about a very British-based phenomenon and only a tiny minority of men raised in these conditions are turning to the sexual abuse of minors. Other factors must also be considered.
A dysfunctional and macho British-Pakistani sub-culture has developed in many post-industrial northern towns and cities in this country. Young men feeling disconnected from mainstream society and their parents’ generation develop their own underground social scene, their own lingo, and their own values and norms.
This scene seeks to amalgamate rural Pakistani values and western street gang culture. It is inherently anti-establishment, insular and operates in a covert manner.
It is this coming together of a sexually restrictive cultural environment with modern criminal street culture, glamorised in hip-hop music, which helps shape the mindset of the abusers. These are the kind of people that wouldn’t feel comfortable meeting women of their own age group in normal settings. They simply don’t have the social skills or manners to engage with members of the opposite sex in that way.
They also have a certain image within their family circles to maintain so they can’t openly date women. Parental pressure to enter into an arranged marriage with a suitable girl from a village in rural
The sexual exploitation of much younger and more vulnerable girls is thus viewed as a means to sexual gratification and status amongst the peer group. The adopted deviant sub-culture glamorises such behavior and encourages a carefree attitude towards such abuse, with very little thought paid to the victims.
To tackle this issue we must firstly understand the social and cultural dynamics that are contributing towards it. This requires contextualization, ownership and the initiation of an honest conversation.
Recent history has taught us that we are not particularly good at these things, especially the honest conversation part when it comes to problems that exist in cultures different to our own.
But most importantly, we need to think about how we can provide support to existing victims and prevent young girls being abused in this way in the future.
Ghaffar Hussain is a leading independent counter-extremism expert
Mr Hussain, I would pick you up on a point or two.
You write, 'These are the kind of people that wouldn’t feel comfortable meeting women of their own age group in normal settings. They simply don’t have the social skills or manners to engage with members of the opposite sex in that way'.
But they are sufficiently comfortable to be able to pick up, socialise and engage in sexual activity with young girls and pass them on to their friends.
You then write, 'To tackle this issue we must firstly understand the social and cultural dynamics that are contributing towards it'.
What is 'contributing' towards this behaviour is the willingness of certain groups of young men to take advantage of, and engage in illegal activities with young women and girls who they see as fair game, because of their age, different race and culture and because they would be unwilling to invoke the outrage that would ensue if they tried it on with girls of their own culture.
Please don't try to make excuses for young men who knowingly do to other peoples' daughters and sisters, what they would be up in arms about if it happened to their own.
Either we respect other people's culture, or we don't. Clearly they do not.
This has been known about by the police for more than a decade ... but the upper echelons of the police and labour home secretaries blocked antagonizing the communities involved for fear of offence. Exactly how you balance the sexual abuse of minors against offence eludes this individual - must be above my pay grade.
The Official Position on this behaviour:
*index fingers in ears* "La la la, can't hear you..."
I remember Nick Griffin going to court charged with racial incitement when he raised the issue of pakistaini paedophile gangs. The police were well aware of the hideous nature of these revolting crimes yet told one mother of an abused 13 year old that she 'had better get used to it as there is nothing we can do'.
When the police can tell a mother of a white girl there is nothing they can do we can be sure of the reason. Its because the rapists in question are muslim. Can you imagine a gang of white men grooming muslim girls and the police telling her family the same thing? No neither can I.
Anyone ever heard of Chalene Downes? No, the bbc haven't either. She was a white girl groomed, raped and murdered and her body turned into Kebabs and sold to the public via a pakistani take away in Blackpool. As of today the police dont seem to bothered about finding the murderers of this girl.
I'm afraid that this article, like the supposed "hard hitting programmes" ends up as being a litany of excuses for the perpetrators.
Too harsh? Certainly not. Let us be frank: the Amish also experience a "sexually restrictive cultural environment" they do not end up kerb-crawling children in their horse and buggies, drugging them, and gang-raping them. Do they?
Just dismissing off-hand the notion of a theological grounding for this behaviour is a product more of wishful thinking than of a hard-headed acquaintance with scripture. Q4:24 does not stand alone as a verse in the Quran, but is accompanied by several centuries of Tafsir (Islamic commentary), not to say Hadiths (e.g. Abu Dawud 2:2150:577) - which all concur in a unanimous message: non-Muslim women "captured" are fair game. To not only dismiss what might be the cultural consequences of such theology, but actually pretend it is not there, is a negligence that borders on the criminal, in my view.
There is simply no point for such pretence. These television programmes far from being brave exposés are in fact extended exercises in veiled concealment, because none of them begin from the most obvious starting point: asking the most straightforward question that would allow one from the beginning to apportion responsibility in the right quarter - which *must* be the necessary prelude to *ever* finding an answer.
Sadly the author reveals his own ignorance again when he erroneously claims, "we must remember that we are largely talking about a very British-based phenomenon". This is quite wrong as the 2002 report by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard shows this behaviour is endemic in Denmark also.
Indeed, what is the simple question I referred to, above? It is this: "Is the abduction and rape of non-Muslim girls by Pakistani Muslim males endemic... in Pakistan?" Reading Human Rights Monitor reports that date back as far as 2001 and 2002 [p. 189 cit. DURIE, M (2010) The Third Choice, Deror] reveals this question to be RHETORICAL.
The latest article I can point to on this phenomenon dates only from October 21st, of this year: bit.ly / uUpQZh We must cease dancing around the mulberry bush on this matter, for fear of offending minorities or upsetting social cohesion. The countless children bent over flea-ridden mattresses as men line up to submit them to nauseating horror *demand* justice. We cannot augment these men's moral repugnance with our own moral cowardice, any longer. Period.
Cityca - to try to understand a phenomenon by explored a whole range of societal, cultural or even religious factors is not to excuse that particular behaviour but rather understand what leads to it in the hope of finding solutions. The piece could have just cursed to the abusers but that would be very productive.
The BBC regional news up here in the North has covered this issue in some detail but amazingly manages to omit the races and culture concerned. You only get that from the names. Hardly helping this culture come to terms, and accept there is a problem here.
"In Islam, any kind of sexual activity before marriage is strictly forbidden. Therefore, no one can claim that this type of sexual abuse is encouraged or sanctioned by the Islamic faith. "
and
"However, we must remember that we are largely talking about a very British-based phenomenon "
This protection does not extent to women who are not muslims, and there is a racist and cultural supremacist thinking in some muslim communities that is the cause of the persecution of non-muslims here.
Note that the same 'Loverboy' problems (please google) involving muslim gangs that prey deliberately on young white girls exist in other nations, Holland, Germany and France, just to name a few, and it always involves groups of men who think that their religion and culture entitles them to persecute others, and it always involved the quiet acceptance of their own communities who themselves will not protect the victims and often have racist views about how they 'deserve' what they get for their 'lose' morals.
In fact, even being an older women does not stop random muslim men from serially rudely accosting, ogling or even whispering pointless obscenities at their victims, and sometimes even groping them. Of course whilst such an attack looks sexual, it actually isn't as the attacker knows they won't get sex, but it's an attack on the culture and confidence of their victims, and the hatred with which those attacks are delivered speaks for itself.
Throwing a smokescreen as you did here doesn't help anyone -- the Muslim community has attitude problem here and just stepping to the side and not doing evil but tolerating it is not enough, you do not just need to turn down use of a sex slave, but you need to free them as well once you know that they are on offer, if you don't you too are guilty of enslaving them. Likewise, what makes so many muslim men (of all nationalities) think they can walk up to random ladies and talk to them as if they are standing in the local £5 brothel?
And there is your solution: the muslim community needs to decide to stop their racist people haters in a comprehensive way starting in childhood and ruthlessly expelling any haters from their midst instead of sheltering them as 'one of theirs', just like the white community have decided to stop the BNP and other assorted Nazis.
And, as you may have noticed, if muslims tolerate haters in their midst, it causes other haters in other communities to 'come out and play' -- racism is quite the 'equal opportunity' pursuit here... and the result is that the decent people everywhere will lose out to the nutters of all sides.
Let's not fight over nutters, let's fight THEM instead!
It isn't just a " British-baserd phenomenon"...similar activities have happenned in Australia as well.
i think the "english" will eventually realise they've had enough,and do the one thing the present appeasing political partie's fear....vote for a more anglo centric rightwing anti europe party...that will start to actually address the immigration problem....none in....and repatriation for the illegals regardless of how long they've been here(and any children illegally born here),criminals and the like...the conservatives aren't blue they're purple...labour aren't red they're purple aswell....
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Much thanks, a very intelligently written piece and I think just about gets it right.
It is obviously cultural and not religious and the macho culture you mention is there for all to see. However how do we persuade the police and certain people within the BBC and left wing media that it isn't racist to identify when a crime is perpetrated mainly by one community? Given the evidence for the Police in particular it seems a deriliction of duty to deny this fact.
It has so far been left up to commentators from the British Pakistani community to do the naming and shaming.