In her 2006 report on child sex exploitation in Rotherham, Dr. Angie Heal, a strategic drugs analyst, wrote, “It is believed by a number of workers that one of the difficulties that prevent this issue [CSE] being dealt with effectively is the ethnicity of the main perpetrators.” She also noted, in Jay’s words, that “the Police dared not act against Asian youths for fear of allegations of racism. This perception was echoed at the present time by some young people we met during the Inquiry.”
Of course, the issue is not only race, but religion. According to 2011 census figures, 91 percent of Pakistanis in England and Wales are Muslim. According to Dr. Heal’s 2006 report, child-sexual-exploitation suspects also commonly hail from Iraq and Kosovo — both nations where Muslims constitute upward of 90 percent of the population.
Additionally, although the majority of victims have been “white British” children, child sex exploitation is also dishearteningly common within the Pakistani-heritage community.
Recent trials would seem to corroborate the Inquiry’s findings — and suggest that the problem is not contained to Rotherham. In November 2010 — the same month that five Rotherham men were jailed for sexual offenses against girls ages 12 to 16 — nine men from Derby were convicted for their part in “systematically abus[ing] and rap[ing]” girls as young as 12. Twenty-seven girls claimed to be victims of the gang. In May 2012, nine Rochdale men were sentenced for similar crimes against girls as young as 13. In June 2013, seven men who together groomed, raped, and trafficked girls as young as 11, were convicted and sentenced in Oxford. The defendants in each case were almost exclusively Muslim.
Professor Jay and her researchers performed interviews with a small number of Rotherham-area victims. “One young person told us,” they wrote, “that ‘gang rape’ was a usual part of growing up in the area of Rotherham in which she lived.”