Politicising societal issues has the effect of bringing certain subjects to the nation’s attention. It can be useful for issues which affect many people but if used for political gain, popularity or to win votes it becomes a populist tool and can often have a detrimental outcome as this could then shift the focus from what is important to what the populists want you to look at. This we would suggest is happening with the Rotherham gang.
Those who are seen as on the right of the conservative party and the Reform party are politicising the Rotherham grooming gang and using it to focus on their racist belief that we are under threat from Asian men. In the case of the Rotherham gang, we have seen the term Pakistani used more than once. This is a trendy view. The conservatives focus on “stopping the boats” gained them support and the right of the party began to become more blatant about their need to stop these people coming to our shores. This of course fed Reform whose populist policy focused on immigration and refugees. This led to racist comments on doorsteps and those who took it too far were booted out of the party.
In 2020, a two-year study of crime data and academic research by the Home Office concluded that “group-based offenders are most commonly white” and that there was no credible evidence that one ethnic group is overrepresented in the perpetrators of child sexual exploitation.
There is “growing evidence” of the far-right actively seeking out survivors of child sexual exploitation, and their families, to exploit their trauma for its own gains, stated by Dr Ella Cockbain.
So why are people buying into this rhetoric?
Firstly, it is an emotive issue. Child abuse. Then it fits into the narrative that these parties spun during the election that we were being overrun by immigration and refugees with records and an agenda were being allowed into our towns and cities. “Our children are under threat; we just look at the Rotherham gang to see how this would happen”. All of this without looking at the effect on the survivors and the failure of those who should have been acting for these children. They forget that the perpetrators may have been Asian in these cases, but it was the white man/woman who let these children down and this is not the first time.
The rhetoric and focus on Asian gangs is dangerous
There have been other scandals surrounding this type of crime. The North Wales children’s homes scandal, The Leicestershire children`s homes, the Jimmy Saville scandal and the list goes on. None of the perpetrators were Asian and a lot were not bought to justice.
By focusing on one scandal, we diminish the suffering of the other children, we ignore the pain and distress and anguish that took place and the lasting effect it has on the children and their families. It also shifts the focus from the ineffective systems we have in place, and which were supposed to have changed but continue regardless.
An outcome of the North Wales inquiry was that no child should be ignored when they made claims of this nature and yet here we are, Rotherham. This, where children were ignored or discredited and where the failure to act resulted in hundreds more children becoming victims, some by those who they had gone to for help and yet, they remain free.
Instead of focusing on the systemic failures of the systems which should have protected these children and more since, the bigots and racists focus on the ethnicity of these men. This is not only irresponsible, but it is damaging and could have a great effect on children who could become victims in the future. This is behaviour by those who would like power and are using it for their own ends, there is no consideration for the ramifications of this.
Not all perpetrators have brown skin.
The systemic failures which led to this being possible
Children placed in care often came from dysfunctional families. In a number of cases, it wasn’t families who didn’t care for their children but who were unable to look after them. In the homes where this abuse happened there were already failures. Children went missing, they were subject to cruelty in the homes by staff and other children and they had moved from one dysfunctional home to another, except there appeared to be no accountability for the children`s homes. Many of the children felt uncared for and unsafe in these places and authorities were not acting in the best interests of the children and were failing to safeguard them. Parents had their children removed if they could not look after them but children in these homes had no escape, no one was accountable.
Society often looked at these children in a derogatory way. They were seen as strays, the lower end of the pile and were stupid or uncontrollable and no-one appeared to care what happened to them. However, that didn’t mean that the families stopped caring. In more than one case the family had alerted authorities about their child and the claims made. The system was not set up to care for these children or to deal with their claims.
Children have a tiny voice, they are powerless and so, when they begin their journey in life in a children`s home they become more defenceless, and that tiny voice becomes smaller, they are at their most vulnerable. When they go to people they see in authority for help, and they do not act they become hopeless. There is a fatalism for these children.
It is easy to pick children off from these homes and that we would hope would lead to more safeguards, but it doesn’t.
https://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/279/independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham
Questions to be answered
We arrive at today where the whole issue has become highly politicised, with even politicians from other countries expressing a view. The Society poses several key questions;
• Have the lessons as set out in the report been learned?
• How confident are we that the abuse isn’t ongoing?
• Is this just an ethnic regional issue or is a UK wide issue?
• What extra safeguards need to be put in place to ensure this never happens again?
• Are the principles of The Children`s Act 2004 being followed nationally?
• Has this tragedy been the victim of austerity?
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