1,400 children raped and trafficked in British town
30 Aug 2014 12:23 AM GMT
A shocking report released by an independent commission in the UK found that at least 1,400 minors in the town of Rotherham - some as young as 11 - were beaten, raped, and trafficked over a 16-year period by men of Pakistani Muslim heritage.
Five men convicted in 2010 for sex abuse in Rotherham. The vast majority of the victims were young white girls. Some officials in the town turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse, believing social workers were exaggerating the claims, while others worried about being labeled as racist if they spoke out, according to the New York Times.
The report accused officials of ignoring ‘a politically inconvenient truth’ in ignoring allegations of men of Pakistani heritage grooming vulnerable white girls for sex. The report chronicled the period between 1997 and 2013.
Some children were drenched in gasoline and threatened with being set on fire if they reported their abuse, others were threatened with guns or forced to witness brutally violent rapes and told they would be next if they told their parents.
Professor Alexis Jay, the author of the report and a former chief inspector of social work, said the young girls - mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds - were brutalized by groups of men. She said her estimate of 1,400 victims was ‘conservative.’
‘They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated,’ Jay wrote. Many of the cases involved ‘grooming’ children over several years with the aid of drugs and alcohol. One child rape victim in the town, known as Emma, told a BBC radio program on August 27th that she slowly developed a relationship with her abusers over several years. ‘After being groomed for quite a while, I started going into Rotherham town center, and I was hanging around with grown men,’ she said. ‘They started introducing alcohol and soft drugs to me. And then, when I was 13, I was sexually exploited by them.’
A former Rotherham care home worker has told the BBC how girls as young as 11 were ‘brazenly’ groomed and abused in the South Yorkshire town. The man, who worked at children’s homes for four years, said girls would be picked up by taxis and abusers made ‘no attempts to disguise’ their actions. Those in charge of care services at the time have faced calls to resign. They include Sonia Sharp, who ran Rotherham’s children’s services department from 2003 to 2008 and is now in charge of education services in the Australian state of Victoria.
Five men convicted in 2010 for sex abuse in Rotherham. The vast majority of the victims were young white girls. Some officials in the town turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse, believing social workers were exaggerating the claims, while others worried about being labeled as racist if they spoke out, according to the New York Times.
The report accused officials of ignoring ‘a politically inconvenient truth’ in ignoring allegations of men of Pakistani heritage grooming vulnerable white girls for sex. The report chronicled the period between 1997 and 2013.
Some children were drenched in gasoline and threatened with being set on fire if they reported their abuse, others were threatened with guns or forced to witness brutally violent rapes and told they would be next if they told their parents.
Professor Alexis Jay, the author of the report and a former chief inspector of social work, said the young girls - mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds - were brutalized by groups of men. She said her estimate of 1,400 victims was ‘conservative.’
‘They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated,’ Jay wrote. Many of the cases involved ‘grooming’ children over several years with the aid of drugs and alcohol. One child rape victim in the town, known as Emma, told a BBC radio program on August 27th that she slowly developed a relationship with her abusers over several years. ‘After being groomed for quite a while, I started going into Rotherham town center, and I was hanging around with grown men,’ she said. ‘They started introducing alcohol and soft drugs to me. And then, when I was 13, I was sexually exploited by them.’
A former Rotherham care home worker has told the BBC how girls as young as 11 were ‘brazenly’ groomed and abused in the South Yorkshire town. The man, who worked at children’s homes for four years, said girls would be picked up by taxis and abusers made ‘no attempts to disguise’ their actions. Those in charge of care services at the time have faced calls to resign. They include Sonia Sharp, who ran Rotherham’s children’s services department from 2003 to 2008 and is now in charge of education services in the Australian state of Victoria.
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