How rescue of teen gang-raped in UK puts spotlight back on Pakistani grooming gangs – HL – Firstpost

The rescue of a teen girl gang-raped in the UK is putting the spotlight on Pakistani grooming gangs.

Hundreds of members of the Sikh community came together to protest against the 16-year-old being held captive by a man in his late 30s. Footage of the incident, which occurred in west London, has now gone viral and renewed the focus on the UK’s grooming gangs scandal.

But what happened? Do we know? And what about the UK’s grooming gangs scandal?

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD

Sikh community comes together protest

Over 200 members of the Sikh community came together to protest against the kidnapping of the minor. Clips show the men chanting “Jo Bole So Nihaal, Sat Sri Akal" at a demonstration in Hounslow outside the residence of one of the suspects.

According to the Sikh Press Association, the suspect had initiated a relationship with the girl when she was just 13. The suspect is known for “befriending” under-16s in West London’s Hounslow.

More from Explainers UK govt rolls back plan requiring workers to use digital ID for employment checks after backlash Malaysia joins Indonesia in restricting Grok AI after obscene image backlash

The teenager, who was being held by a man in his late 30s, was held at his flat and raped by half a dozen other men from a Pakistani grooming gang. The police arrested one of the suspects after hours of protests from the Sikhs over inaction. Footage also shows the suspect being taken into police custody. The minor has been released.

India Today quoted Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi as slamming the UK government over the latest incident.

“These are nothing but Pakistani grooming gangs which are nurtured by UK because UK refuses to call them out for who they are.” London-based author Pandit Satish Sharma accused the authorities of being ‘complicit’ for not addressing the decades-long issue.

Editor’s Picks1Explained: ‘Pakistani grooming gangs’ scandal for which Elon Musk is attacking Keir Starmer 2UK cracks down on foreign sex offenders: Is London finally waking up to Pakistani 'grooming gangs'?

UK grooming gangs scandal

As per _The Week,_ reports of Pakistani-origin gangs targeting young girls first began coming out in 2002. At the time, then-Labour MP Ann Cryer warned that such incidents were occurring in her West Yorkshire constituency of Keighley.

An investigation was launched by The Times newspaper in 2010 after a gang of five men were convicted of sexual offences against minors from the ages of 12 to 16 in South Yorkshire’s Rotherham. The investigation revealed that hundreds if not thousands of young girls had been sexually exploited by organised gangs comprising predominantly British-Pakistani men.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADA woman poses at her home in England, UK, January 8, 2025. She was 14 when she was sexually abused by a grooming gang in Rochdale. File Image/Reuters

The girls targeted were between the ages of 11 and 16, predominantly white, and from troubled backgrounds. The men, who worked as taxi drivers or in other such jobs, many of whom were involved with illegal drugs, would lavish attention on the victims. The girls would be plied with alcohol and drugs and then forced into sex with one man. After that, they would be trafficked to his friends and relatives to be sexually exploited.

The newspaper mentioned at least 1,400 children over a decade and a half had been systematically abused by these Pakistani grooming gangs.

The Rotherham Borough Council, South Yorkshire Police and other agencies in the aftermath of The Times report set up a child sexual exploitation (CSE) gruppe. The council also commissioned an independent inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay, who published her own report in 2014.

‘Hard to describe’

“It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered,” Jay’s report about abuse in Rotherham noted. “They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated.” Children were “doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened [that] they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.”

These child-grooming gangs have been uncovered and rooted out in several other English towns including Rochdale, Oldham, Telford, Bristol, Oxford, Huddersfield, Halifax and Banbury. Jay in her report mentioned that the police treated the victims with “contempt”, and that social workers “underplayed” the issue. She said councillors were worried about an impact on “community cohesion”.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADThe newspaper remarked at least 1,400 children over a decade and a half had been systematically abused by these Pakistani grooming gangs. Representational image

It also quoted a senior police officer in Rotherham claiming that the abuse had been “going on” for three decades. “With it being Asians, we can’t afford for this to be coming out,” he added. Witnesses stated pressure was applied on people to “suppress, keep quiet or cover up.” An ex-senior officer remarked, “X didn’t want [the] town to become the child abuse capital of the north. They didn’t want riots.”

The report added that there was “a sense that it was the Pakistani heritage councillors who alone ‘dealt’ with that community” had a “disproportionate influence” on the council. “My experience of council as it was and is – Asian men very powerful, and the white British are very mindful of racism and frightened of racism allegations so there is no robust challenge,” a witness added.

However, a Home Office report on group-based child sexual exploitation released in 2020 claimed that organised grooming gangs “come from diverse backgrounds, with each group being broadly ethnically homogeneous”. It added that those involved in such activities are “predominantly white”.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD

Inquiry stalls, row turns political

Though the government announced a national inquiry last year, progress on that has stalled because of “wrangles over its remit” as well as the difficulty in finding a senior justice to head up the commission, as per The Guardian.

The newspaper reported that “judges and lawyers appear to be reluctant to head the inquiry”, due to its “politically sensitive” subject matter and the prospect of “intense media scrutiny”.

The row turned political last year with Elon Musk taking aim at Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the issue. Starmer was previously in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2008 to 2013. The prime minister in 2013 had introduced recent guidelines on how to treat victims of child sexual abuse (CSA) and how to prosecute such cases.

A number of people on the right including far-right Reform UK leader Nigel Farage have taken aim at the UK government over the issue.

“What we need and what [the victims are] calling for is a rifle shot: this inquiry – one that looks specifically at to what extent were gangs of Pakistani men raping young white girls,” Farage reported in the House of Commons during a debate. “Because ultimately, it seems to me, there’s a deep racist element behind what happened.”

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD

Rupert Lowe, another Reform UK member, demanded that the government refuse all Pakistani visas until the issue was thoroughly examined.

“The mass rape of young, white working-class girls by gangs of Pakistani rapists is a rotting stain on our nation,” he remarked. “This is not about Elon Musk. This is not a bandwagon of the far right. This is about the victims and ensuring swift and brutal justice is delivered to those demons responsible.”

While Musk accused Starmer of being complicit, Starmer and CPS in 2013 were praised by a Commons Home Affairs Select Committee for trying to uncover “systematic failure and to improve the way things are done”.

With inputs from agencies

HomeExplainersHow rescue of teen gang-raped in UK puts spotlight back on Pakistani grooming gangsEnd of Article