Throw away the key??

Thank you, Lilygran -what a good memory you have. I did say I wasn't sure what he said, so I stand corrected.

He has a point (can't stand the man, personally).

David Starkey, who some consider divisive, was quoted in the Guardian today as saying that Pakistani Asians, like the men who have been jailed for the abuse of these girls, should be taught English history. He went on to say that we also used to treat our women in the way that certain Asian men who are are alienated from our society do. He thought it would be a good idea if they learnt about the origins of modern feminism.

This is in response to an earlier post by Greatnan. I don't think the Archbishop said it would be a good thing if we had Sharia law in this country! I think he said that some aspects of Sharia law were already operating and that this could be expected to increase. I think he was drawing an analogy with the Beth Din rabbinical courts which deal with domestic matters and issues about ritual and religious laws.

Don't like the quote about 'these new wives can bring an unhealthy attitude'...blame the woman?

Thanks for the info about how the prison system works whenim64. I just hope that they do actually go through the appropriate programs.

Yes, completely agree with you Greatnan. I don't like their cultural norms, but those norms definitely don't include having sex with children.

I wonder what percentage of women in Kashmir are allowed to be educated, marry whom they please, keep their own earnings, and choose their own clothing. There are lots of different kinds of abuse, I think, and the victims may not even be aware of it.

Bags that's a helpful article which points out that it's not just asian men who have these attitudes to women, and more investigations are afoot, involving white men.

The one thing I didn't see in the article and would have expected to see is that no man will abuse a child or woman unless they want to (short of having a gun pointed at their head, and then they are just as much a victim as the woman).

The basic tenet of understanding sex offences against children is that it starts with the desire to convert fantasties into reality, then a victim has to be found, separated from those who will protect them, and their resistance overcome. If the wish to do it isn't there in the first place, there will be no offence. Professional male workers who will be in close proximity to vulnerable children and adult women will not take advantage of their vulnerability, unless they are abusers who should have been filtered out by vetting and Criminal Records Bureau checks.

These men should not be allowed to rationalise their offending with excuses that they come from Kashmir where attitudes are that women can be abused, They have learned the rules about what is sexually right and wrong and finding vulnerable girls and young women to inflict harm on demonstrates that they want to do it, otherwise they would involve themselves in other activities. They have looked for victims who won't tell or be believed. The people of Kashmir would be incensed to learn that their culture is being blamed for these men's behaviour. There are millions of Kashmiri men who don't commit offences against children.

Thank you, when, your information is always so interesting.
baNana, I agree with you completely and we can only hope that stiff sentences for 'honour' beatings, domestic violence and forced marriages, and the Westernisation of younger Muslims, will bring about a change in attitude.
I worked with a young Pakistani woman at the Inland Revenue in London. She told me that her parents had left their village 40 years before and they still had the same mindset, but did not realise that some things had changed even in Pakistan. She was dating a Hindu and was terrified her parents would find out. The only flagrant prejudice I saw in the IR was amongst Indians, where those of a higher caste refused to work with Untouchables.

Another colleague was from Jamaica and told me she would never marry a fellow Afro-Caribbean because they had a bad attitude to women. This was not religious, just cultural, but she believed that African men who had been enslaved were infantilized and became unable to accept responsibility. Her brother had three children by different 'baby mothers'. It is an interesting theory but obviously I have no way of proving it.

Greatnan for the purposes of sex offender treatment and registration, young girls are children until they are 18. The only slightly encouraging thing here is that many offenders who target teenagers elevate them to the status of adult women in order to permit themselves to harm them. This means that education about children from many different perspectives, will instill some level of self-regulation in terms of what age they would target in future. The rest of the treatment work is about not targeting anyone at all, of course.

Any of these men, when tested, who are found to have paedophilic tendencies i.e. an attraction to children because they ARE children, would be treated differently, and their management would centre around controlling them in the community, as well as attempting to reduce or extinguish their deviant attraction - as you can imagine that is well nigh impossible.

POGS I am with you all the way.

Greatnan I do agree with you, but just how do you go about eradicating a mindset so deeply ingrained over centuries. Women are obviously deemed second class in so many ways which is pretty endemic in patriachal religions. In Western countries practising Catholics pay a sort of lip service taking the bits they like and discarding most of the nonsense, and the church knows it, but it's so discredited there's not much they can do about it. Islam still maintains a vice like grip on it's women, and I imagine it suits them to have them shackled to men and uneducated in case the break away and question the dogma like we have done.

I was just about to post about today's article in the Independent and see that it has already been done. Well worth reading.

Bother! forgot to blue it (my computer does that automatically elsewhere. Heavyhint to Tech): www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/asian-grooming-why-we-need-to-talk-about-sex-7734712.html

Very good, rather long, article in the Independent today saying just that in the best possible way: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/asian-grooming-why-we-need-to-talk-about-sex-7734712.html

The impression I gathered from all the reports was that they were not particularly interested in children, but just that young girls were easier to groom than mature women. I am afraid that I do not believe that any treatment programme based on sexual proclivities would help them. What they need is to be taught to respect all females, not just those of their own race/religion.

Joan those men are now convicted sex offenders and so will be separated in different wings, different prisons. As co-defendants, they should not be allowed to communicate with each other, particularly if they are going to appeal, or may have more information about victims who have not yet come forward. They will be expected to work or be in education, and will be assessed for suitability for the Prison SOTP (Sex Offender Treatment Programme). Those whose release will come before they are able to complete the programme will be required to undertake it whilst on licence and subject to close supvision by the Probation Service. It is likely they would have to live in a Probation Hostel and be subject to strict curfews and reporting in, with visits from the police specialists, and to undertake as much sex offender treatment as can be fitted into their licence period. If they do not comply, or break the terms of their licence, they will be recalled to prison. Completion of the SOTP does not mean they are low risk, but psychotmetric testing and interviews will determine if they still have an untreated profile and what that means in terms of remaining risk to children.

Those offenders who do not comply with any treatment will be risk assessed by a MAPPA panel (Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements) and resources will be matched to risk - in the extreme, this could include surveiilance. They will all be subject to sex offender registration, and will have to receive visits from police and have their homes inspected for various periods, from a couple of years to life for those who got the heavier sentences.

If any appeals are successful (very unlikely) that wouldn't prevent their risk being assessed and police continuing to report back on them to the MAPPA.

There was an article in "The Times" yesterday about these girls and the homes they were in, which were privately run (and had been sold on at a profit!) and, according to one OfSTED report, one at least had no staff skilled in dealing with sexual abuse issues. It was tough to read, but there is obviously a poor record there, and these children are not being protected.

I wonder what will happen to those 'men' in prison. Will they be able to form ethnic groups and encourage each other in their nastiness? Or will some sort of challenge go on? Will they have to learn proper attitudes and behaviour? Will they receive some sort of education? I think my first guess is right.

I also wonder why the young victims, many of whom were in care, were clearly not being cared for at all. Is the care system so broken? I wonder why little mention has been made of their lives leading up to this abuse. I know one of them has a Dad who has joined the BNP because of the case. Hardly a positive thing to do for his girl,

Perhaps some girls who are put into care should be sent to a respectable Muslim household. That'd put the cat among the pidgeons, wouldn't it? It would never happen of course - the girls would object, and few Muslim Mums would want to become foster carers to such girls, but it is an interesting thought.

Well said on both your recent posts, nanaej

I agree re sentencing..

Thank you whenim64

A level head is required over this matter. The fact is 85% of grooming in gangs on white women has been apportioned to the Pakistani community. Like wise a similar percentage of grooming on the internet has been apportioned to white males.

This has been a problem for years. Can anyone remember Jack Straw caused a hell of a stink when he stood up in the Commons and told Parliament this was happening and he used the term something like the girls were seen as 'white meat'! by some men in his community, which is I beleive mainly of Pakistani origin.

I am heartened by a couple of pakistani spokesmen who have spoken out about this and they have openly siad this is the case and it is upto their community to look inwards and stop it. I beleive the Muslim Council too are openly saying this has been the case which is good to hear.

What I found annoying was the length of the sentances which I consider too lenient.

nanaej . No-one should be treated badly because of their race. I have had a small taste of being dismissed because I am white, and I was outraged, so I can't begin to fathom what years of systematic and institutionalised racism feels like. It's time the world moved on - there are so few people who can claim their genes are just one race. We are a mix of many races when any of us check our genealogy.

nanaej . No-one should be treated badly because of their race. I have had a small taste of being dismissed because I am white, and I was outraged, so I can't begin to fathom what years of systematic and institutionalised racism feels like. It's time the world moved on - there are so few people who can claim their genes are just one race. We are a mix of many races when any of us check our genealogy.