“Grooming Gangs” – A Lack of Data and Racialized Narratives

Despite not being a legal term, the phrase “grooming gangs” has become increasingly politically charged in recent years and has led to widespread moral panic. Racist ideologies that fixate on the ethnicity of perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation have gained disproportionate attention in the media, ultimately undermining efforts to identify and protect victims.

Existing evidence presents a far more complex national picture of abuse, one shaped more significantly by class, gender, and socio-economic inequality than by ethnicity. Two major public inquiries into child sexual abuse: the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (2014); and the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA, 2022) reinforce this nuanced reality.

Data

One of the consistent findings between these two inquiries was the lack of reliable and consistent data, particularly regarding the ethnicity of both perpetrators and victims. Data relies upon victims coming forward, the relevant authorities properly reporting claims and record them correctly to enable proper conclusions to be drawn.

Both inquiries also found that failings of the police contributed to the underreporting of abuse, where many child victims were marked with contempt for failing to act on their abuse and believing that the extent of abuse was exaggerated.

The Rotherham Inquiry (2014) revealed that many of the perpetrators of abuse in the area were of Pakistani heritage, the report unequivocally noted that this finding was not reflective of the national picture. In fact, national data shows that most perpetrators of child sexual abuse in the UK are white and data from the Officer of National Statistics reported in 2019 found that Asian ethnic minorities are underrepresented.

Further, a Government literature review from 2020 on the characteristics of group-based child exploitation reported that abuse is more likely to take place in areas of heightened socio-economic deprivation, and factors such as children living in care homes, experiencing homelessness or insecure accommodation status play a role in offenders targeting victims.

Political scapegoating

Scapegoating certain minority ethnic groups as the perpetrators of crime and cause of deprivation has been repeatedly deployed to further political agendas. Notably the mugging scare in the 1970s blamed black men and highlighted a rise in crime in the country, which turned out to be fiction. More recently, popular narratives contend that immigrants and asylum seekers are to blame for job and housing shortages, which has also largely been disproved.

In the case of so called “grooming gangs”, the racialisation of the issue has often obscured the wider systemic failures that allow abuse to persist. It distracts from the urgent need to address why and how victims fall through the cracks of care, law enforcement and schools.

Looking Forward

The final IICSA (2022) report made a number of important recommendations, including:

• Improving the collection and recording of data, particularly around ethnicity and victim vulnerabilities;
• Addressing institutional failings in policing, social work, and education, and;
• Strengthening support systems for children in care and other high-risk groups.

Despite the numerous of recommendations made, many remain unimplemented.

Right wing narratives often co-opt issues rooted in systemic failings to scapegoat ethnic minorities, diverting attention from institutional accountability and advancing divisive political agendas. For real change to happen, the conversation around child sexual abuse in the UK must recognise the complexity of the issue and reject reductive, racialised narratives to bring justice and accountability to victims.

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