Rotherham Child Abuse

It is not non PC to care about children's safety. There should be no racial distinction about protocols for investigating this sort of crime.

It is a crying shame what has been done to these youngsters, wicked BASTARDS , people!

It is, Nonu, and the number of vulnerable children involved just beggars belief - at least 1400! How on earth could this have been allowed to carry on when at least some influential people knew about it?!

I couldn't believe it when we were told that it wasn't a racist crime. How could it not be? Things like this are exactly what turn people into racists

As you quite rightly say MAGGIE it just beggars believe, suppose though it will be just brushed under the carpet, Because of the people involved!
heyho

VERY

It is also racist in as much as the Pakistani men by and large target white girls - they would not 'dishonour' there own women and girls.

In the book 'holding up half the sky ' there is an account in India of lower caste girls being captured and forced into prostitution so that the higher caste boys could sow their oats !

So far only one resignation. I think anyone who covered up, ignored, dismissed or pussy footed around this issue should be out of the door. I am sick of appalling crimes of neglect, whether sexual abuse of children or physical abuse of those in care homes ending up with a token manager sacked, occasionally a few at the bottom prosecuted and all those all the way up the chain, complicit, but kept their hands clean staying where they are.

And if one more official says 'Lessons will be learnt' I shall SCREAM.

My comment wont be popular, but based upon my experience until retirement 7 years ago, it's true....

Local Authorities quite rightly adopt Equal Opportunity Policies and employ 'Equality Officers' or similar to monitor and ensure adherance. Some categories of inequality are monitored and action enforced more robustly than other categories. Sometimes very robustly.

I have known examples of when it is virtually imposible to navigate between action/non-action that does not contravene Equal Ops to action/non action that is right.

With apologies to anyone who is offended by this viewpont and sincere and deeply felt apologies to those 1400 children.

Susieb755 I am with you all the way. Well done for voicing your opinion so succinctly.

I used to teach a number of delightful Asian women and I tell you their lives were far from easy. No wonder they have a strong 'sisterhood' to support each other.

I am having great difficulty in coping with the enormity of these crimes and the mountainous dimensions of the police and local authority indifference over so many years. Those poor, poor children. I despair!

I can quite believe it NanKate. It is such a shame that the sisterhood does not extend, no doubt through fear, to these poor white children. I understand sisters are often used to befriend the victim.

There will be many of you here who would not have liked to hear the language in my lounge this evening while watching channel 4 news.
I am beyond rage. I want to kill. And if that offends some, so be it.

What really bothers me, is it still going on covertly?, or please God, if it is, are these poor youngsters getting the help they need to extricate themselves from any terrible situation they might find themselves in. "Going into care" seems a contradiction, given that care is the last thing they receive, although I gather some of the girls came from regular families. Does anyone on GN, remember a drama called "Band of Gold" written by Kay Mellor?, it was made a good few years ago now, but if I remember rightly it touched on this very subject.

Can't help wondering if South Yorkshire Poilce, who were very public about their investigations with Cliff Richard, were now trying to be seen as proactive as possible knowing this report was coming out just a week or two later.

I wonder if it had been Caucasian men and minority ethnic children the response would have been different, I suggest that many would have been jumping up and down about a ' racist crime' and investigations would have been all over the papers rather than hidden under a very thick carpet!
I am being very cynical I know but these 1400 crimes have been hidden.

This is a shocking finding but I think it isn't helpful to start hurling accusations around, such as "there is a lot of covert abuse taking place within some of our migrant communities". It seems to me there is a lot of covert abuse taking place in all communities and often where people would least expect to find it.

From what I've read, it seems that a lot of people, and especially the police, were not doing their jobs properly. Whatever ethnic origin a suspect is, it is up to those responsible for upholding the law to investigate all reports of suspected violence and sexual coercion against children or adults. Where is the personal integrity of those who hide behind "political correctness" and a fear of being called racist to excuse them looking the other way while those who need their protection are being terrorised.

I am not condoning any of this but I do think they were afraid of political correctness and fear of being called racist, the report says so. I understand why, the fact is for too long and it is still happening to date you are called racist at the drop of a hat. Blimey it even happens on here.

When the story broke a while ago you could hear and see the comments, even then, that supported the fact you should not apply any comment or thought that upheld the theory this was a cultural issue. Well I'm sorry the report does for once state the truth and the cat is out the bag and it doesn't matter how hard anybody tries to brush it back under the carpet, it simply won't wash anymore.

It is not the time to try and minimise the damage these @/-,)> have caused to those poor kids by bringing in the fact they are not the only ones. We know, but for once let's just accept in this instance this is a cultural issue. Sadly Rotherham is not the only area if my memory serves me well and I wouldn't be surprised to hear further stories again.

There are filthy @/-)¡^'s doing filthy things all the time but I really get annoyed that we cannot call it as it is for the very same reason as happened in this case, being called racist.

This has been going on for 16 years in Rotherham and it seems the authorities were well aware of it. It's just not good enough to cite fear of being called racist as a reason for doing nothing. I remember a mother of one of these girls saying that when she had asked the authorities to do something about her daughter's sexual exploitation, she was told that there was nothing they could do because it was "a lifestyle choice", despite the fact that this girl was under age and vulnerable.

It wasn't "political correctness" that shut down the investigations into Cyril Smith's abuse of boys or into the alleged Westminster paedophile ring, where dossiers and pieces of evidence have gone missing or been destroyed. It wasn't "political correctness" that led to a shoddy and incomplete investigations into the abuse of children in care in North Wales and Cumbria.

From The Guardian, Prof Jay's own explanation.
Jay's report is particularly critical of the authorities' failure to engage properly with the 8,000-strong members of Rotherham's Pakistani-heritage community. Akhtar, deputy leader until he lost his seat in May, told Jay he had not understood the scale of the child exploitation problem in Rotherham until 2013. Jay writes: "He was one of the elected members who said they thought the criminal convictions in 2010 were 'a one-off, isolated case', and not an example of a more deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls. This was at best naive, and at worst ignoring a politically inconvenient truth."

I entirely agree with eloethan this lame excuse of 'political correctness' and being scared of accusations of racism is deplorable.

It's a smokescreen to cover up appalling sloppy standards by the police, social services, institutions, etc.

The same standards that were displayed in relation to the North Wales care homes, Cyril Smith, Jimmy Savile, Elm Guest House ...... no Pakistanis in these cases.

It is instructive to read the report in full. It's long - 159 pages - but well written and incisive.

It shows failures throughout the systems, but one of the most telling is the appallingly sexist behaviours by the bullying, macho, intimidating councillors on Rotherham Council who, along with permanent officers, the police and other agencies failed to act for years.

http//:www.rotherham.gov.uk./downloads/id/1407/independent_inquiry_cse_in_rotherham

I have just finished reading my daily newspaper, in it were reports of some of the things that gone on.
I really, really wish I hadn"t , it made me want to vomit to be frank.

BEYOND

There are chilling examples of the police arresting the abused girls for eg being drunk and letting the men go. Amongst all the racism issues, let's not forget the problems with the some police officers dismissing young girls as drunken slappers who brought it on themselves. It's not just racism - there's sexism and classism as well in this story ( and many others which include police failures). I would also add that power and its exercise ( in this case as in many others predominantly by men) has to be part of the analysis. Put Rotherham in the macro abuse context - the RC church, the BBC etc and think of all the common characteristics

Nonu - I just feel a mixture of intense sadness and anger - but it's not about me or you is it and how we feel. What matters is if we think we can do anything to contribute?