But pretending like only people on the far-right and people like DHH are willing to say this is just wrong. This is also the stated outcome of official inquiries of the UK government.
As a German you may not be aware of this, but the scandal has been developing for a very long time. I have seen estimates that this has been going on for as long as 20 years*. Both Tory and Labour governments have resisted a national enquiry, and when the pressure built enough they tried to proactively limit the scope of any enquiry by pitching terms of reference in advance, like no mention of ethnicity.
The findings of the enquiry mentioned by the blog is a private one organised by Rupert Lowe (who I otherwise detest).
* I have often said that if these gangs had been targeting the daughters of Cabinet Ministers and Chief Constables, the abuse would have been stamped out in weeks.
I already agreed (as did the UK Government audit) that there was a reluctance to investigate due to fear of being racist. But the official inquiries have happened, and they were initiated by the left. Did it take to long? Yes, but so did Hillsborough. I think your assertion that class of the victims has a role to play here is absolutely accurate. But again, all of this was also already stated in officially commissioned reports going back 13 years. The Jay Report being the earliest I could recall/find right now [1].
Let me be absolutely clear: We cannot leave pointing out problematic culture in specific groups to the racists. This is something that will be supremely important to get right going forward. The challenge is that at the same time, the racists are always selectively highlighting crimes by minorities, even if they occur statistically at the same rate as for the whole population. And we _also_ need to defend minorities against this slander. And if you know anything about public communication, you know that that's tough. Clean simple messages repeated over and over tend to win.
Issues of ethnicity related to child sexual exploitation have been discussed in other
reports, including the Home Affairs Select Committee report, and the report of the
Children’s Commissioner. Within the Council, we found no evidence of children’s
social care staff being influenced by concerns about the ethnic origins of suspected
perpetrators when dealing with individual child protection cases, including CSE. In
the broader organisational context, however, there was a widespread perception that
messages conveyed by some senior people in the Council and also the Police, were
to 'downplay' the ethnic dimensions of CSE. Unsurprisingly, frontline staff appeared
to be confused as to what they were supposed to say and do and what would be
interpreted as 'racist'. From a political perspective, the approach of avoiding public
discussion of the issues was ill judged.
There was too much reliance by agencies on traditional community leaders such as
elected members and imams as being the primary conduit of communication with the
Pakistani-heritage community. The Inquiry spoke to several Pakistani-heritage
women who felt disenfranchised by this and thought it was a barrier to people coming
forward to talk about CSE. Others believed there was wholesale denial of the problem
in the Pakistani-heritage community in the same way that other forms of abuse were
ignored. Representatives of women's groups were frustrated that interpretations of
the Borough's problems with CSE were often based on an assumption that similar
abuse did not take place in their own community and therefore concentrated mainly
on young white girls.
Both women and men from the community voiced strong concern that other than two
meetings in 2011, there had been no direct engagement with them about CSE over the
past 15 years, and this needed to be addressed urgently, rather than 'tiptoeing'
around the issue.
Comments
As a German you may not be aware of this, but the scandal has been developing for a very long time. I have seen estimates that this has been going on for as long as 20 years*. Both Tory and Labour governments have resisted a national enquiry, and when the pressure built enough they tried to proactively limit the scope of any enquiry by pitching terms of reference in advance, like no mention of ethnicity.
The findings of the enquiry mentioned by the blog is a private one organised by Rupert Lowe (who I otherwise detest).
* I have often said that if these gangs had been targeting the daughters of Cabinet Ministers and Chief Constables, the abuse would have been stamped out in weeks.
I spent/spend a lot of time in the UK.
I already agreed (as did the UK Government audit) that there was a reluctance to investigate due to fear of being racist. But the official inquiries have happened, and they were initiated by the left. Did it take to long? Yes, but so did Hillsborough. I think your assertion that class of the victims has a role to play here is absolutely accurate. But again, all of this was also already stated in officially commissioned reports going back 13 years. The Jay Report being the earliest I could recall/find right now [1].
Let me be absolutely clear: We cannot leave pointing out problematic culture in specific groups to the racists. This is something that will be supremely important to get right going forward. The challenge is that at the same time, the racists are always selectively highlighting crimes by minorities, even if they occur statistically at the same rate as for the whole population. And we _also_ need to defend minorities against this slander. And if you know anything about public communication, you know that that's tough. Clean simple messages repeated over and over tend to win.
---
As I just looked it up, here is what the report commissioned by the council said in 2013: https://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/279/independent-...
Issues of ethnicity related to child sexual exploitation have been discussed in other reports, including the Home Affairs Select Committee report, and the report of the Children’s Commissioner. Within the Council, we found no evidence of children’s social care staff being influenced by concerns about the ethnic origins of suspected perpetrators when dealing with individual child protection cases, including CSE. In the broader organisational context, however, there was a widespread perception that messages conveyed by some senior people in the Council and also the Police, were to 'downplay' the ethnic dimensions of CSE. Unsurprisingly, frontline staff appeared to be confused as to what they were supposed to say and do and what would be interpreted as 'racist'. From a political perspective, the approach of avoiding public discussion of the issues was ill judged.
There was too much reliance by agencies on traditional community leaders such as elected members and imams as being the primary conduit of communication with the Pakistani-heritage community. The Inquiry spoke to several Pakistani-heritage women who felt disenfranchised by this and thought it was a barrier to people coming forward to talk about CSE. Others believed there was wholesale denial of the problem in the Pakistani-heritage community in the same way that other forms of abuse were ignored. Representatives of women's groups were frustrated that interpretations of the Borough's problems with CSE were often based on an assumption that similar abuse did not take place in their own community and therefore concentrated mainly on young white girls.
Both women and men from the community voiced strong concern that other than two meetings in 2011, there had been no direct engagement with them about CSE over the past 15 years, and this needed to be addressed urgently, rather than 'tiptoeing' around the issue.