Across the 2000s, a series of child sex exploitation cases affected British towns, including Telford, Rochdale, Oxford and Rotherham, scarring the lives of hundreds of children. In 2011, Times journalist Andrew Norfolk reported that networks – so-called “grooming gangs” – of largely British Asian men of Pakistani heritage had trafficked and raped hundreds of mainly girls and young women.
These are facts that are widely known in the UK and have been the subject of multiple investigations. The 2014 Jay report found that authorities had been slow to act, sometimes for fear of being accused of racism.
Police had in some cases blamed victims, criminalising children as prostitutes. Alexis Jay, who also led the 2022 independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, has noted the “appalling and lifelong effects” of abuse on victims.
