“It is absolutely crucial that we can discuss the link between grooming gangs and Asian heritage”

A think tank in UK has claimed that 84 per cent of people convicted of child grooming-gang offenses since 2005 were Asian.

In a new study, the Quilliam Foundation says its researchers discovered differences in the way pedophiles from different backgrounds operated. It said white offenders often acted alone, while child abusers from Asian backgrounds were more likely to work in so-called grooming gangs. The foundation, which usually focuses on counter-extremism, said it found 222 of 264, or 84 per cent, of people convicted of specific grooming-gang crimes in the UK since 2005 were Asian.

In a number of cities across the UK, gangs of predominantly British Pakistani men have been convicted for targeting vulnerable white young women and girls. Questions have been raised about the connections between ethnicity and the offenders, and two British-Pakistani researchers from the think tank have said that the link is important, adding its voice to the debate with what it describes as an evidence-based view.

The report’s co-author, Haras Rafiq, is from Rochdale, where 19 British-Pakistani men were jailed between 2012 and 2015 after a grooming ring thought to have abused at least 47 girls was uncovered, report The Independent. Maajid Nawaz said it was absolutely crucial that people could discuss the link between grooming gangs and British South Asian Muslim heritage without being called racist or bigoted. He argued that silencing moderate discussion actually created more space and opportunity for actual Islamophobia that would fill the void created by a lack of rational debate. He said: “Why are we still, despite the years of evidence mounting up, uncomfortable talking about this issue? And accepting that there is a hugely disproportionate number of British South Asian Muslim men involved in what can only be described as a despicable crime?”

Since 2011 these sort of crimes have occurred in cities up and down the UK, and they are spreading. “They have occurred in Rochdale, Rotherham, Oxford, Telford, Leeds, Birmingham, Norwich, Burnley, High Wycombe, Leicester, Dewsbury, Middlesborough, Peterborough, Bristol, Halifax and Newcastle and only in two of those cases were the men not of British South Asian Muslim heritage. All of the victims, in all of those cities and the list was very long, except three were white teenage girls.” These gang members plied vulnerable women and girls with drink and drugs before assaulting them. In a series of trials over the last few years, juries found the men guilty of a catalogue of nearly 100 offences– including rape, human trafficking, conspiracy to incite prostitution and drug supply – between 2011 and 2014.

In a Sky News interview, Mr Rafiq said “I’m from the heart of where one of the biggest high-profile cases has happened over the last few years, and I’m saying it’s very important that we do talk about it because the problem won’t go away. We didn’t want there to be a pattern of people from our ethnic demographic carrying out these attacks, but unfortunately we were proven wrong. British white men, they tend to work individually. They tend to work online where they groom and they are the majority of perpetrators. When it comes to Asian men or Pakistani men they tend to do it in groups.”

The National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP) identifies two types of group-based child abuse. It says in “Type 1” offenders work in groups such as grooming gangs to target victims based on vulnerability, while “Type 2” offenders form pedophile rings to carry out abuse because of a specific sexual interest in children. A CEOP study released in 2012 found 75 per cent of offenders in grooming-gang cases were from Asian backgrounds, while 100 per cent in pedophile rings were white.