Failing victims, fuelling hate: challenging the harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' narrative Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail

The involvement of supposedly feminist and liberal actors and the promotion of pseudoscientific ‘research’ have lent a veneer of legitimacy to essentialist, Ella Cockbain is an associate professor at University College London in the Department of Security and Crime Science and a visiting research fellow at Leiden University. The involvement of supposedly feminist and liberal actors and the promotion of pseudoscientific ‘research’ have lent a veneer of legitimacy to essentialist, Ella Cockbain is an associate professor at University College London in the Department

Race & Class
Copyright © 2020 Institute of Race Relations, 1 –30
10.1177/0306396819895727 journals.sagepub.com/home/rac
SAGE
Los Angeles,
London,
New Delhi,
Singapore,
Washington DC,
Melbourne
Failing victims, fuelling hate:
challenging the harms of the
‘Muslim grooming gangs’ narrative
ELLA CoCkbAIN and WAqAS TufAIL
Abstract: ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ have become a defining feature of media,
political and public debate around child sexual exploitation in the uk. The
dominant narrative that has emerged to explain a series of horrific cases is
misleading, sensationalist and has in itself promoted a number of harms. This
article examines how racist framings of ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ exist not
only in extremist, far-right fringes but in mainstream, liberal discourses too.
The involvement of supposedly feminist and liberal actors and the promotion
of pseudoscientific ‘research’ have lent a veneer of legitimacy to essentialist,
Ella Cockbain is an associate professor at university College London in the Department of Securi
and Crime Science and a visiting research fellow at Leiden university. Her research focuses on
human trafficking, child sexual exploitationand labour exploitation.In seeking evidence-
informed responses to complex issues, she has worked closely with organisations across
public, private and third sectors. Her book Offender and Victim Networks in Human Trafficking w
published by Routledge in 2018.
Waqas Tufail is a senior lecturer in Criminology at Leeds beckett university. His research interes
concern the policing, racialisation and criminalisation of marginalised and minority communities
and the lived experiences of Muslim minorities. He is a board member of the Internatio
Sociological Association Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity,
serves on the editorial board of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity and is co-editor of Media, Crime
Racism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
895727RAC0010.1177/0306396819895727Race & ClassCockbain and Tufail
research-article2020

2 Race & Class 00(0)
orientalist stereotypes of Muslim men, the demonisation of whole communities
and demands for collective responsibility. These developments are situated in
the broader socio-political context, including the far Right’s weaponisation of
women’s rights, the ‘Islamophobia industry’ and a long history of racialising crime.
We propose alternative ways of understanding and responding to child sexual
exploitation/abuse. We contend that genuinely anti-racist feminist approaches
can help in centring victims/survivors and their needs and in tackling serious
sexual violence without demonising entire communities.
Keywords: anti-Muslim racism, anti-racist feminism, child sexual abuse and
exploitation, grooming gangs, Islamophobia, quilliam
Introduction
over the past decade, the ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ narrative has become firmly
established in popular and political discourse in the uk. Claims of how Muslim
culture and faith supposedly perpetuate sexual abuse have helped collectively
demonise british Muslim communities, especially young Muslim men. Initially
driven by the rightwing media, this construction has been advanced and legiti-
mised by ostensibly liberal and feminist actors. Additional boosts have come via
discredited,highly-politicisedand partisan ‘research’from special interest
groups, apparently seeking to capitalise on wider anti-Muslim attitudes in order
to influence government policy and otherwise profit. The ‘Muslim groomin
gangs’ trope has enduring currency among rightwing and liberal political elites
and, if left unchecked, risks fuelling further racialised and alarmist news cover-
age and informing misguided and harmful responses. Much of the narrative has
centred around towns in the North and Midlands regions of England, whe
many particularly high-profile criminal convictions have taken place. Rotherham
in South Yorkshire, has arguably become the place most synonymous wit
‘Muslim grooming gangs’ and has attracted the most attention from far-ri
groups. Home to a significant population of Asian Muslim heritage, worke
from the Indian subcontinent initially arrived into towns such as Rotherham to
work within the manufacturing sector and were often treated poorly in compari-
son to whites.1 Like many other places in the former industrial heartlands in the
North, Rotherham has struggled for decades with the effects of deindustrialisa-
tion – the loss of skilled, well-paid jobs, soaring unemployment and the destabil
sation and fragmentation of communities.2
The central argument of the ‘grooming gangs’ narrative is, in short, that a ‘dis
proportionate’ number of Asian/Muslim/Pakistani-heritage men are involved in
grooming (mostly) white british girls for organised sexual abuse. These claims a
often substantiated with reference to a spate of high-profile prosecutions
called ‘grooming gangs’ in towns and cities such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Derb
Telford, oxford, Huddersfield and Newcastle. The offenders in question – a

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate3
undoubtedly many more – have absolutely committed horrific crimes; this artic
categorically not about denying their existence, belittling their harms or otherw
excusing the inexcusable. The term ‘grooming gangs’, however, is itself a spur
media construct and one that has been heavily racialised from the very3
‘Grooming gangs’ simply do not correspond to established legal or social scien
categories and the various weak definitions offered up by proponents of
racialised narrative fail to delineate these offenders meaningfully from other g
of child sex offenders.4 Contrary to stereotypes, there is no ‘grooming’ offence5 – let
alone a ‘grooming gangs’ offence; consequently, ‘grooming gang offenders’ ca
be sensibly disentangled from police recorded crime data or prosecution
Moreover, and as will be shown later, a relatively small number of high-profile
‘grooming gangs’ cases have been used to claim an ‘epidemic’ of abuse. Desp
routinely (and wrongly) being depicted as a ‘specific’ crime type, ‘grooming ga
are better understood as a vaguely and inconsistently defined subset of child s
ual exploitation (CSE) offenders.6 Complicating matters further, however, CSE is
itself a poorly delineated subset of child sexual abuse (CSA) that spans
criminal offences (e.g. rape, sexual activity with a child) – most of which are al
used in instances that would not normally be considered CSE.7 Existing data sim-
ply do not enable reliable assessments of the prevalence or correlates of CSE,8 let
alone those of ‘grooming gangs’ – so claims of ethnic or religious disproportion
ity in ‘grooming gangs’ are just not testable in any meaningful sense.9
The ‘grooming gangs’ narrative belongs within a broader tendency to racialis
crime in political and popular discourse. The classic example is the racialised p
in 1970s britain in which young black men were cast as ‘muggers’.10 fuelled by
misleading statistics and misinformation, the devastating consequences includ
over-policing and criminalisation. In the uS, the term ‘superpredator’ emerged
the 1990s, pushed forward by conservative thinkers as representing a new, hy
violent crime phenomenon.11 As Yamahtta-Taylor reminds us, the use of this term
by former Secretary of State and former presidential candidate Hilary Cl
played directly into racist, damaging tropes about young black men: ‘The disco
of “super predators” was not an unfortunate misstatement; it was a racist, poli
calculation intended to publicly demonstrate a lack of sympathy for black peop
and support for a regime of punishment and retribution.’12
The racialisation of ‘grooming gangs’ must also be understood in the context
a long history of racialised and gendered Islamophobia, or anti-Muslim racism.
Muslim men have been stereotyped as both religiously fanatical and pro
committing violent, sexual acts motivated by a patriarchal, misogynistic cultur
and backward, barbaric religion.13 Looking back over more than a decade, we
document the architects of the ‘grooming gangs’ narrative, examine the politic
backdrop to it and consider the harms it causes. We also sketch out tangible w
forward, with implications for policy-makers, practitioners and activists. We con
tend that genuinely practised anti-racist feminism is vital in tackling child sexu
abuse and resisting anti-Muslim forces.

4 Race & Class 00(0)
Introducing the key architects of the ‘grooming gangs’ narrative
Here, we consider how racialised discourse around ‘Asian sex gangs’ and
‘Muslim rape gangs’ emerged, proliferated and became entrenched. We focus
on four main architects: media, politicians, the far Right and dubious ‘special
interest groups’.
The media creates, spreads and sustains a toxic narrative
‘on-street grooming’ exploded into the national consciousness on 5 Januar
2011 when The Times – a rightwing broadsheet owned by Murdoch’s New
International – ran a dramatic exposé claiming to have uncovered a new crime
threat. Setting the bar for subsequent debate, evidence of just fifty-six convicte
offenders was used to substantiate alarmist claims of a ‘tidal wave of offend-
ing’.14 The story combined two particularly explosive contentions: that Pakistani-
heritage men were preying on white british girls; and that the authorities failed
to intervene ‘for fear of being branded racist’.15 The Times’ portrayal of ‘groom-
ing’ as a distinct and racialised crime threat rests on ‘misconceptions, anecdote
opinion and the deliberate manipulation of limited statistics of dubious prove-
nance’.16 Nevertheless, the coverage proved inflammatory and has set the news
agenda in the decade since.
The journalist behind the story was a little-known regional corresponden
called Andrew Norfolk. Soon promoted to The Times’ Chief Investigative Reporte
Norfolk pursued ‘grooming’-related stories doggedly over the coming years
combining major scoops with less obviously newsworthy stories seemingly cho-
sen to stoke ‘his personally crafted crime model of white victims and Pakistani
perpetrators’.17 He subsequently received some of the most prestigious awards in
british journalism, including the orwell Prize and Paul foot Award. A series of
discredited articles led Cathcart and french to examine whether Norfolk was sac
rificing journalistic standards in a push to present ‘Muslims as threatening18
Their rigorous analysis of three major stories – two ‘grooming’-related and the
now infamous ‘Muslim foster care’19 scandal – concluded that his central allega-
tions were ‘unfounded’, ‘serious inaccuracies’ rife, ‘standards of conduct and et
ics’ severely breached and ‘Norfolk’s impartiality’ highly questionable.20 Editor
John Witherow was complicit too, they argued, as the newspaper had ‘vigorousl
promoted Norfolk’s accusations, placing them on its front page, endorsing them
in editorials and subsequently resisting complaints and criticisms in defiance of
the evidence’.21 Maintaining this trend, The Times dismissed the forensic critique
as a ‘politically motivated’ attempt to ‘smear and suppress fine reporting’.22
His dubious journalistic standards notwithstanding, Norfolk’s racialised crime
threat immediately caught the media, political and public imagination and soon
became entrenched.23 Phrases like ‘grooming gang’ have come to assume a par-
ticular and racially loaded meaning. Even a cursory news database search dem-
onstrates how a new vocabulary emerged post-Times exposé: the term ‘groomi

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate5
gang*’ returned 5,647 results in the nearly nine years since then, compared w
zero in the nine years prior.24 The term’s racialisation was as evident as its prolif-
eration: over half the results contained references to ‘Islam*’, ‘Muslim*’, ‘Pakis
or ‘Asian*’.25 Indicating how this loaded language has leached even into profes-
sional discourse, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) recently issued a p
release headlined ‘Six men convicted of Rotherham grooming gang offences’:
reiterate, ‘grooming gang offences’ do not exist in law.26
Several academics have criticised the disparity between media portrayals of
‘Asian sex gangs’ and similarly high-profile white offenders, including celebritie
and politicians.27 According to Miah,28 sexual abuses carried out by Asian offend-
ers are explained in terms of race and culture, whereas their white counterpar
crimes are framed as individual deviance.
Politicians give credibility to racial stereotypes around ‘grooming’
Numerous mainstream politicians have helped propagate the ‘grooming gangs
narrative through clumsy, misleadingand/or outright racist contributions.
Centre-left politicians have proved particularly pivotal in migrating rhetori
more characteristic of the far Right to the political mainstream.29 key early contri-
butions came from Labour MP Jack Straw: despite apparent disinterest in CSE
while home secretary, ahead of a critical by-election he notoriously blam
‘grooming’ on regressive british-Pakistani culture, arranged marriages and view
of white girls as ‘easy meat’.30 His comments not only farcically implied that rap-
ing children is the natural alternative to premarital sex31 but furthered myths that
‘repressed sexuality’ drives abuse and perpetrated orientalist stereotypes abo
Muslim men’s ‘rapacious sexual appetites’.32 other Labour politicians followed
suit in emphasising the role of ethnicity and/or culture.33 Such spurious ‘cultural’
explanations have been criticised both within and beyond the context of CSE a
backdoor for ‘new racism’ in a supposedly ‘post-racial’ society.34
one particularly dramatic intervention came from Sarah Champion, Labour M
for Rotherham and, ironically, shadow secretary of state for women and equali
Champion had to resign from the frontbench after writing an inflammatory arti
entitled ‘british Pakistani men ARE raping and exploiting white girls . . . and it’s
time we faced up to it’ for The Sun, a News International-owned rightwing tablo35
Champion wrote, ‘These people are predators, and the common denominator i
their ethnic heritage’, claiming she was speaking out as she could no longer ‘sh
away from doing the right thing by fearing being called a racist’. Her views in t
article were likened to those of the far Right, and she faced intense criticism in
ing from some of her parliamentary colleagues and from local human rights gr
in her Rotherham constituency.36 Champion later apologised for her ‘extremely
poor choice of words’, admitting the article ‘could be taken to vilify an entire co
munity’.37 Her article notably appeared alongside and was endorsed by a colum
from The Sun’s former political editor Trevor kavanagh, which characteris
‘grooming gangs’ as ‘the Muslim problem’: a framing heavily criticised for evok

6 Race & Class 00(0)
Nazi-era rhetoric.38 kavanagh’s article attracted official complaints but was cleared
by the Independent Press Standards organisation (IPSo), which found it did not
breach its guidelines. kavanagh serves as a member of IPSo’s regulatory board,
although the body claimed he was not part of the investigation. The decision to
clear kavanagh’s article was condemned by both the Muslim Council of britain
and the board of Deputies of british Jews, which said the decision highlighted th
IPSo was ‘unfit for purpose’.39
Conservative MP Sajid Javid, then communities secretary and now chancellor
of the exchequer, vocally defended Champion’s contribution and the need
examine ‘racial motivation’.40 The following year, Champion spearheaded a let-
ter41 to Javid – by then home secretary – co-signed by twenty MPs, demanding
research into the ‘drivers’ of ‘organised grooming gangs’.42 The letter explicitly
mentioned neither race nor religion, but by now ‘grooming gangs’ was clearly a
racially coded term. An interfaith group’s follow-up letter supported Champion’s
demands, explicitly citing dubious evidence of ethnic disproportionality to bolste
claims of a ‘sexual grooming gang epidemic’.43 Javid’s response to Champion was
scooped by The Times’ aforementioned Andrew Norfolk and reported as the hom
secretary having ‘ordered research into why men convicted of grooming-gang s
crimes are disproportionately of Pakistani origin’.44 Although this angle misrepre-
sented Javid’s actual letter, it was repeated across numerous news outlets – and
neither Javid nor Champion apparently cared to correct it.45 Consequently, the
impression stood that ethnic disproportionality in ‘grooming gangs’ was an
accepted fact and legitimate focus for government-commissioned research.
fuelling the fire, Javid later released a dog-whistle of a tweet about ‘sick Asian
paedophiles’.46 His propagation of racial stereotypes is particularly importan
given his senior roles and british-Pakistani heritage: ‘racial gatekeeping’ lends
social legitimacy to claims and policies that disadvantage racially marginalised
groups.47 Notably, Javid’s interest in racialising sexual offending has not extende
to organised abuse in schools, religious institutions, sports clubs, politics, celeb-
rity circles and other contexts likely dominated by white offenders. Contribution
to a recent House of Lords debate exemplify how politicians continue to stoke
misleading narratives around ‘grooming gangs’, perhaps to further broade
agendas of their own. Lord Singh, an independent peer who soon after quit the
bbC over claims it was trying to silence him for fear of offending Muslim48
decried ‘misplaced political correctness’. baroness Cox, who previously lost the
Conservative whip after urging voters to support ukIP,49 appealed to collective
responsibility, saying ‘Muslim leaders’ should ‘take ownership of policies to pre-
vent these atrocities’. Lord Cormack exceptionalised ‘grooming gangs’, treating
them as emblematic of an entire community:
. . . it is deeply distressing that these people are disgracing themselves
their wider community, as well as the british community of which they have
become a part.50

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate7
The far Right embrace a made-to-measure Muslim threat
The far Right’s enthusiasm for the ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ narrative is predic
able. Yet, their messaging and activity feeds off and is given credence by racia
ing discourses already in circulation among mainstream politicians. furthe
underlining how ideas can migrate in both directions between parliament and
far-right street forces, the extremist british National Party (bNP) was an origina
proponent of racialising CSE in the early 2000s.51 Since then, ‘Muslim grooming
gangs’ have become a staple of far-right propaganda in the uk and beyond, for
ing a key ‘mobilising trope’ of the pan-European Counter-Jihad Movement52
overtly Islamophobic terms like ‘rape jihad’ play to fears of invasion and ‘cul-
tural replacement’. The far Right’s weaponisation of CSE is much facilitated by
needing only to echo and embellish tropes well-established in the mainstream.
for example, far-right propaganda text Easy Meat features familiar claims abou
the ‘epidemic of child-rape by grooming gangs’, failed multiculturalism, politi-
cally-correct cover-ups and the ‘collusion’ and collective responsibility of
Muslim community’.53 Notably, its author Peter McLoughlin later self-published
the book Mohammed’s Koran: why Muslims kill for Islam, delisted by Amazon f
‘inappropriate content’.54 His co-author on the latter was ‘Tommy Robinson’ (real
name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon): ex-English Defence League (EDL) leader a
‘rock star’ of the transatlantic and pan-European ‘counter-jihad’ movement.55
In recent years, ‘Tommy Robinson’ has made CSE into his cause célèbre. He
recently appointed ‘special personal advisor on rape gangs’ to the leader of the
uk Independence Party (ukIP)56 and invited to speak in the Czech Parliament
about ‘grooming gangs’.57 of course, Robinson is neither the subject matter expert
nor victims’ champion he claims to be. His outspokenness on child sexual abus
apparently does not extend to offences committed by fellow EDL extremists.58 He
was also imprisoned for contempt of court after breaching reporting restriction
at a major CSE trial in Huddersfield.59 Testifying in sexual offences trials is already
notoriously difficult and traumatic − even without the additional stress, delays
and even appeals that such breaches of due process can cause.60 Robinson’s acts
were the latest in a long history of the far Right disrupting CSE trials by putting
their own self-interests (promoting racism, publicity, campaign material, e
ahead of victims’ welfare and the administration of justice.61
‘Special interest’ groups provide the missing ‘research’
Stereotypes of ‘Muslim rape gangs’ were greatly boosted by the quilliam
foundation’s ‘grooming gangs’ report, source of the spurious but ubiquito
claim that ‘84% of grooming gang offenders’ are Asian.62 Although framed as
‘academic’63 and ‘evidence-based’, the report is shoddy pseudoscience. Its con-
clusion that the ‘over-representation of Asian-ethnicity (predominantly british
Pakistani origin) individuals . . . is conclusively irrefutable’ (p. 6) is deeply mis-
leading. The report in no way delivers on its pretence of ‘comprehensive data
analysis of all group child-sex offences committed in the united kingdom over

8 Race & Class 00(0)
a period of 12 years’ (p. 15). Tellingly, the key word ‘comprehensive’ was later
deleted amid furtive corrections to the published report: when challenged, staff
outright lied64 and continued to meet valid criticisms with personal attacks.65
The supposedly ‘specific crime profile’66 under investigation is actually con-
fused, inconsistent and incoherent.67 The report is exceptionally weak method-
ologically: instead of disclosing fundamentals like sources, sampling strategy,
search terms (if any) and inclusion parameters, we find vacuous assertions of
‘extensive data mining methods’ (p. 16). bizarrely, its ‘data’ section is primarily
a crude rehashing of results from an entirely different report divested of crucial
caveats about its limitations.68
Somehow – in a way impossible to verify – 264 offenders were identified acros
twelve years: horrific abuse notwithstanding, such a sample does not justify dra
matic claims of an ‘epidemic’ and ‘crisis’ (pp. 14, 33, 41). The data source rema
unspecified but was likely media reports, seemingly cherry-picked to ‘defi
tively demonstrate’ a predetermined disproportionality (p. 15). using media cov
erage to assess sexual offenders’ characteristics is problematic in any case, sin
offences by ethnic minorities tend to be over-reported:69 a form of ‘deviance
amplification’.70 Worryingly, some academics (including the author of a book on
‘anti-racist practice in social work’) have since uncritically cited quilliam’s drivel
and even made a similarly dubious attempt to assess (dis)proportionality in CSE
offending based on ‘Muslim names’ in media reports.71 This point further dem-
onstrates that poor quality, partisan ‘research’ also has the capacity to influenc
and shape scholarly debate – a development that should alarm researchers.
quilliam’s report and its ‘data analysis’ is basic counting at best, devoid of the
transparency and rigour needed for any confidence in the findings. Despite the
complete absence of statistical reporting around victims’ characteristics or
offenders’ religion/national heritage, the authors contend that offenders were
‘predominantly british Pakistani origin’ and the ‘Asian male/white female, per-
petrator-victim dynamic is the undeniable prominent feature’ (pp. 6, 30). Their
claims to ‘list all possible caveats relating to the accuracy of the data’ and to ha
made ‘every attempt’ to ‘ensure the integrity of the information’ (p. 16)
patently untrue: obvious biases (e.g. sampling, self-selection, institutional
media biases) are overlooked and there is no sign of peer-review or any mean-
ingful quality assurance. In fact, the report is riddled with untrue, misleading,
contradictory, unsubstantiated and misattributed information.72 Information
appears cherry-picked to support a central thesis that ‘regressive’ Pakistani cul-
ture drives abuse of white british girls. for example, the authors claim ‘racial
difference . . . [is] highlighted through repeated reference to the ‘whiteness’ of
the victims’ (p. 7) but provide relevant supporting evidence for just one offende
thus grossly generalising from under 0.4 per cent of their sample. Similarly, the
conveniently omit relevant court judgments that challenge racial/cultural expla-
nations.73 further underlining their cavalier approach, the authors make sweep-
ing, unsubstantiated claims that ‘grooming’ is caused by ‘divisive, unevolved

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate9
cultural identities’, unchecked cultural misogyny, homophobia, insufficient
integration of migrants, child marriage, and so on (p. 32). The ‘regressive left’
and ‘extreme political correctness’ are duly blamed as well (pp. 40–41). failing
declare funding or conflicts of interests is also problematic: this ‘counter-extrem
ism think tank’ has a history of dubious funding and alliances, including part-
nering with ‘Tommy Robinson’ in his ill-fated ‘de-radicalisation’ and stood to
gain from CSE being reconceptualised as a ‘counter-extremism’ threat.74
Despite its interminable flaws, the quilliam report attracted immediate, exte
sive and almost entirely uncritical publicity.75 Playing into existing stereotypes, it
provided the veneer of academic and statistical legitimacy largely missin
date. Some outlets further amplified the threat of the Muslim ‘other’ by misrep
senting the already spurious results as pertaining to all ‘grooming’: for exampl
The Sunday Times was found to breach reporting codes with its misleading hea
line ‘Asians make up 80 per cent of child groomers’.76 In foregrounding their
british-Pakistani heritage in the report and subsequent publicity, the quilliam
authors predictably helped detract from their lack of relevant academic or prof
sional credentials and empowered responses like this one:
Islamophobia! up goes the cry to quickly shut down debate. Sorry but that
won’t wash on this occasion. The quilliam report is written by Haris Rafi [sic]
and Muna Zainab, both of Pakistani heritage, so it’s pretty hard to accuse the
of demonizing Muslims.77
Demonstrating how the report empowered Islamophobes, one ukIP politician
praised ‘some very courageous Muslims in the quilliam foundation’ and their
work tracing abuse ‘back to the Islamic faith’ when declaring that the uk faced
holocaust of our daughters’.78 Another repeatedly cited it in the House of Lords
to bolster his own claims of ‘millions of rapes of white and Sikh girls by Muslim
men’ and ‘250,000 victims of radical Muslim grooming gangs’.79 The 84 per cent
statistic is regularly found in far-right materials on- and off-line. ‘Tommy
Robinson’ even included quilliam’s report in his defence bundle, apparently to
suggest his claims about ‘grooming’ were ‘factually correct’ and so would not
have prejudiced the Huddersfield trial.80
The fringe, nationalist Sikh Youth uk (SYuk) group then released a mu
lower-profile but similarly shoddy report, which addressed ‘religiously aggra-
vated sexual exploitation of young Sikh women’.81 SYuk had already been
accusedof propagatinganti-Muslim hatred in collaboratingwith ‘Tommy
Robinson’ around ‘Muslim grooming gangs’.82 further underlining how actors
have forged questionable alliances around shared interests in the ‘groom
space, Sarah Champion MP – author of the racist article discussed earlier and
much lauded by quilliam83 – backed both SYuk’s inflammatory report84 and its
broader contested work around CSE.85 The report was promoted across social
and traditional media and at gurdwaras, where SYuk solicits donations.86
Effectively a diatribe against Pakistani Muslims, this empirically and analyticall

10 Race & Class 00(0)
weak publication makes inflammatory yet poorly substantiated claims of a ‘grav
longstanding and targeted threat of sexual abuse and exploitation’ and the atte
dant ‘failures of law enforcement agencies and local authorities’.87 Its underlying
appeals to historical tensions and Islamophobia recall Sian’s88 critiques of the
‘forced conversion’ narrative, which has proven potent and durable among
british Sikh diaspora communities despite there being no evidence of ‘predatory
Muslim males grooming ‘vulnerable’ Sikh girls for conversion. Ironically, given
the focus on sexual violence, women are implicitly treated in the SYuk report as
possessions and a locus of shame and honour. Similar criticisms have been levie
at the broader ‘grooming’ discourse among british Sikhs, with female Sikh activ
ists complaining that women’s voices have been side-lined, familial abuse over-
looked and women’s experiences misappropriated ‘to prop up their person
anti-Muslim agenda’.89 Despite its obvious shortcomings, the SYuk report was
cited uncritically in a recent parliamentary debate on ‘grooming gangs’.90
Driving anti-Muslim racism: the UK and international far Right
To understand the broader political context to the ‘grooming gangs’ discourse, i
is important to consider the international far Right’s weaponisation of women’s
rights, the role of the uk far Right and the ‘Islamophobia industry’.
How the international far Right is co-opting women’s rights
Central to pan-European and indeed global far-right narratives is the presentatio
of Muslims as a specific and urgent civilisational threat.91 far-right propaganda
commonly refers to the ‘Islamisation’ or ‘Islamification’ of Europe, or
‘Islamofascism’.92 The ‘war on terror’ helped mainstream such perspectives and
normalise the use of secular and feminist discourses to inveigh against the supp
edly increasing threat of Islam in Europe.93 The anti-Muslim political climate cul-
tivated by ‘Islamofascism’ proponents has helped fuel concerted campaign
against face veils (leading to full or partial bans in several European countries),
concerns over the ‘Muslim birth rate’, frequent attacks on Muslim civil so
groups and political activists, concocted outrage over the practice of halal slaug
ter and a persistently anti-Muslim ‘integrationism’ agenda.94 This anti-Muslim cli-
mate has served as ideological justification for domestic and international ‘war
terror’ efforts – and the attendant wide-ranging human rights abuses – of which
Muslims in Europe, the uS and elsewhere bear the brunt.95 A defining feature of
European far-right propaganda, which has now seeped into mainstream liberal
and some feminist discourse and is particularly important for this article, is the
use of women’s rights to advocate and advance anti-Muslim sentiments.
A clear tendency has emerged for far-right, neo-nationalist parties – and grou
and individuals affiliated with their cause – to present themselves as champions
of women’s rights.96 This phenomenon is apparent in various European countries
and beyond, including the Nordic bloc, where societies are stereotyped as more

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate11
tolerant and social democratic in their value systems. In the Nordics, as in the
serious sexual offences have been racialised and politicised.97 for example, three
high-profile cases in finland were exploited to rail against immigration policy,
Muslims and those regarded as ‘threatening others’.98 These cases also demon-
strate how nationalist and colonialist rhetoric serves to symbolise ‘their’ wome
as representing the honour and glory of a nation and further links women’s bod
ies with territory and notions of a ‘pure’ biological race.99 Similar invocations are
evident in other countries and contexts, including in france and Australia. for
example, Dagistanli and Grewal contend that in public and political discourse i
Australia, a series of rapes came to represent both the perceived danger of Mu
immigrants and their threat to ‘Australian values’: ‘the violation of “Australian
girls” became symbolic of a much larger threat to the nation’.100
In her work on ‘femonationalism’,101 farris contends that both nationalists and
neoliberals frame Islam as ‘a quintessentially misogynistic religion and culture
and draw on gender equality to ‘advance xenophobic and racist politics’. Throu
case studies from the Netherlands and Italy, farris explores the unlikely coalitio
of nationalists and feminists around an anti-Muslim agenda, demonstrating how
some feminists and femocrats102 are complicit in campaigning that helps stigma-
tise Muslim men and which often also includes a broader anti-immigrant comp
nent. Such context helps situate and make sense of the contributions of promin
feminists in racialising ‘grooming gangs’: most notably the inputs of Sara
Champion MP, explored earlier in this article. Such interventions from individua
seen as feminists from the liberal ‘centre ground’ of politics are crucial in legiti
ing the far Right’s campaign against ‘grooming gangs’: serving to strengthen t
brand of anti-Muslim racism positioned under the banner of gender equality.
The UK far Right and the ‘Islamophobia industry’
The EDL, the racist anti-Muslim street group founded by ‘Tommy Robinso
enjoyed its greatest success and biggest mobilisations in the early 2010
demonstrations, often targeted at the uk’s Muslim communities, then regularly
attracted thousands of participants. The EDL has since imploded, reportedly du
to dwindling support and in-fighting.103 As is common in far-right circles, how-
ever, various smaller, splinter groups have emerged to accommodate street-ba
fascist thugs. The remnants of the EDL, including groups such as ‘Yorkshire’s
finest’, have targeted Rotherham, which has experienced numerous far-ri
demonstrations in the aftermath of the ‘grooming gang’ scandals: over one pa
ticularly active period – August 2014−September 2015 – fourteen separate dem
onstrations took place.104 one such group, the ‘Democratic football Lads Alliance
(DfLA), organises almost exclusively against ‘Muslim grooming gangs’, under
the guise of women’s rights and protecting (white) women and girls.105 Notably,
the DfLA add credence to their claims by using on their flyers the dodgy 84 per
cent statistic from quilliam and emphasising that even ‘left-wing media new
outlets’ publicised it, implying it must therefore be true.106 Another new group,

12 Race & Class 00(0)
‘Justice for Women and Children’, is reportedly the uk’s first female-led far-right
group. It was launched in Sunderland in the North East and claims to campaign
against abusers and for victims regardless of ethnicity: yet, members and their
close associates have attracted accusations of ‘long term associations with the
right’.107 Commenting on a bbC News investigation into ‘Justice for Women and
Children’, Sarah Champion MP rather ironically and hypocritically condemned
them for ‘using some of the most abhorrent abuse of children for their o
agenda’. When ‘Tommy Robinson’ was tried for contempt of court (see previous
section), Ezra Levant and katie Hopkins attended in support: prominent far-right
figures, notorious for their frequent anti-Muslim diatribes.108 further underlining
the reach of powerful ‘special interest groups’ invested in furthering an anti-Mus
lim agenda, ‘Tommy Robinson’ was ‘reporting’ for far-right Canadian news web-
site Rebel Media at the time of the offences. ‘Robinson’s’ work for Rebel Media
was revealedas funded via a fellowship from uS tech billionaire Robert
Shillman,109 a board member of the notoriously anti-Muslim thinktank the David
Horowitz freedom Center. Giving a glimpse into a transatlantic web of da
money and influence,110 both the David Horowitz freedom Center and quilliam
have received funds from the Lynde and Harry bradley foundation.111 Scholars
have referred to such groups as being part of an ‘Islamophobia industry’: transa
lantic neoconservative actors and institutions, often funded by wealthy eli
which work to ‘manufacture’ fear of Islam and Muslims in order to influe
political discourse and policy.112
Examining the impacts of racialising child sexual abuse
Although it is very difficult to pinpoint how racialised discourses contribute to
specific outcomes (e.g. racist violence),113 a growing body of evidence suggests the
fixation on ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ is making its effects felt locally, nationally
and internationally. Here, we explore how it can skew responses to CSE/CSA,
affect victims, fuel violent Islamophobia and translate into structural racism.
Increased attention to CSE but a heavily-skewed focus
over the past decade, CSE has gone from a fairly marginal concern to being des
ignated a ‘national threat’.114 Publicity, political exposure and outrage around
‘grooming gangs’ have helped drive considerable changes, including new enqui
ries and strategies,115 a revised definition, greater prioritisation and investment
in improving responses and expanding the evidence-base. The number of
recorded child sex offences in general has increased rapidly since 2012/13, reac
ing 63,000 across the uk in 2016/17.116 This uptick, driven particularly by non-
recent cases, likely reflects increased awareness of CSE/CSA, greater willingnes
to report, improved understanding among professionals and better recordi
practices.117 The intersection between CSE and other harms is also increasingly
recognised, including going missing, youth offending, human trafficking an

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate13
child criminal exploitation.118 once routinely dismissed as ‘streetwise’ and ‘con-
senting child prostitutes’,119 sexually exploited children now appear more widely
recognised as victims of abuse.120 Responding to attitudinal changes and calls to
reduce victim-blaming,121 sexual offence legislation has been revised, replacing
the stigmatising term ‘child prostitution’ with ‘sexual exploitation of children’.
Although many such developments are clearly to be welcomed, improvements
have come at a cost: the narrow lens on ‘grooming gangs’ detracts from
immense scale and diversity of abuse.
In 2016 alone, 6,687 offenders were convicted of CSA-related offences
England and Wales.122 These figures clearly dwarf the select handful of cases
underpinning The Times’123 and quilliam’s124 sensationalist claims of an epi-
demic: respectively just four and twenty-two convicted offenders per year for
the whole uk.125 The true epidemic here, of course, is CSA in general: an esti-
mated 15–20 per cent of girls and 7–8 per cent of boys are sexually abused.126
CSE/CSA occurs in numerous different contexts and involves diverse victims
and offenders, many of whom are family members or friends.127 beyond already
debunked ‘evidence’ from The Times128 and quilliam,129 claims of ethnic dispro-
portionality in ‘grooming’ typically rest on small-scale reports130 with obvious
methodological shortcomings.131 Nevertheless, ethnicity-related results are often
decontextualised and, stripped of vital caveats, that extensive missing data me
their findings are not reliable, let alone generalisable. In examining alleged eth
nic disproportionality, wide-reaching national datasets with clearer and more
consistent inclusion parameters are a better comparator. Although criminal jus
tice data on ethnicity should always be treated cautiously (and data on religion
are simply not collected as standard), Asians were notably not overrepresente
among the approximately 172,000 men and 27,000 women convicted of sexua
offences in England and Wales in 2016.132
Erasing victims and survivors and neglecting their needs
The overwhelming focus on Asian men abusing white girls risks erasing other
victims, neglecting their needs and overlooking other offenders.133 Clearly dem-
onstrating diversity in those affected by CSE, a study of over 9,000 CSE service
users in the uk found that nearly one-third was male and around one in five
black or minority ethnicity (bME).134 Mainstream services are reportedly geared
towards white girls and overlook the needs of other (intersecting) groups like
ethnic minorities, boys, LGbTq+ children and those with disabilities, who can
face particular challenges and barriers to disclosure, like additional stigma or f
of ‘shaming’ their families.135
Despite extremely limited empirical research, evidence (some anecdota
gradually amassing that the existence, experiences and welfare of victims/surv
vors who deviate from now entrenched racial stereotypes can be neglected. fo
example, several prosecutions involving mostly white offenders attracted mini
mal media coverage compared to that reserved for ‘Asian sex gangs’: as if the

14 Race & Class 00(0)
abuses somehow mattered less.136 The Jay (2014) report received intense publicity
for its (methodologically dubious137) estimate that 1,400 children were abused in
Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, mostly by groups of Pakistani-heritag
offenders. bME victims were almost entirely overlooked in the coverage.138
Meanwhile, quilliam’s report literally whitewashed out bME victims in its sam-
ple through untrue and insulting claims that all victims were white.139 ‘Grooming
gangs’ are also a hot topic on social media, where numerous people have spoke
informally about feeling erased and invalidated because their abuse did not con
form to racial stereotypes. The following lines from one survivor’s poem exem-
plify this sense of erasure:
I’m a victim of child abuse by white working class men,
You dismiss it because you look just like them . . .
Voices erased to focus solely on one method of abuse
Now deceptive propaganda for third-party use (@Casuallyq, author)140
Survivors have spoken out against their and others’ experiences being we
onised for political gain, particularly by the far Right which uses ‘them a
weapon for racism just the same way they were used for sex by their abusers’ (
kateElysiaNWo, author).141 Some report experiencing verbal abuse as a result:
Tommy [Robinson] doesn’t support the cause I fight for, he peddles hate and
right wing extremism in my opinion. . . [@HollyArcher_CSE, author and sup-
port worker].142
. . . The amount of abuse I’ve had from them for not fitting the agenda/sup-
porting TR [Tommy Robinson] is unbelievable (they were ok talking about my
story until they realised I wasn’t Abused only by Muslims – then suddenly
they felt my kids needed throwing in the English Channel) [@MsCaitSpencer,
author].143
further pushback was evident in an open letter from a group of survivors fed up
with repeated far-right marches in Rotherham.144 Published on the front page of
a local newspaper, it called for the marches to be banned and detailed the anxie
and trauma caused, including ‘horrific memories’ stirred and frustration at abus
being exploited to fuel ‘hatred and fear’.145 The far Right, ukIP included, have
faced further accusations of co-opting the abused to promote their narrative, try
ing to ‘infiltrate’ support groups and even launching an ‘anti-grooming helpline’146
that raises obvious concerns from a safeguarding and data protection perspec-
tive.147 for example, peer-support group Shatter boys was reportedly approached
by senior ukIP figures promising introductions to multi-millionaire donors,
leading founder Danny Wolstencroft to state, ‘What they’re doing basically
grooming survivor groups and survivors of abuse. I think their fight is ab

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate15
Islam.’148 of course, CSE survivors are not a homogeneous group and some sur-
vivors and their families have tilted towards the far Right, for example sharing
far-right propaganda on social media, speaking at rallies or collaborating
‘anti-grooming’ initiatives.149 This troubling development highlights how the
cynical and populist far Right is able to instrumentalise its anti-Muslim agenda
gain support from unlikely sources.
Fuelling anti-Muslim hostility and violent Islamophobia
The global far Right has long indulged in anti-Muslim propaganda, includ
through the racialisation of sexual abuse (see previous section). In diatri
posted online before his massacre of seventy-seven people in Norway in 2011,
Anders breivik railed against Islam, multiculturalism and the rape of ‘hundreds
of European women’.150 The perpetrator of the most recent far-right massac
killed fifty-two Muslims as they prayed in mosques in Christchurch, New
Zealand. In specific reference to ‘grooming gangs’, his ammunition was inscrib
‘for Rotherham’, visible in images uploaded online before the attack and the liv
streamed atrocities themselves.151 His rambling ‘manifesto’ also featured two
pages on how ‘invading forces’ were raping ‘European women’, drawing exten-
sively on uk CSE cases.152 Darren osborne, who killed a Muslim prayer-goer and
injured several more in the finsbury Park mosque terror attack in 2017,
reportedly ‘obsessed with Muslims, grooming gangs, and terrorism’ and, accor
ing to his former partner, suddenly started accusing all Muslims of ‘raping chil-
dren and being capable of blowing people up’.153 osborne’s online searches and
interactions included far-right group britain first and ‘Tommy Robinson’.154
More generally, far-right activity around ‘grooming gangs’ has focused on to
in England’s North and Midlands, like Rochdale, Rotherham and, increasin
Telford: home to high-profile convictions.155 As highlighted previously, extensive
marches targeting Muslim communitieshave taken place, particularly in
Rotherham. Attempts to ban the marches have failed and local residents, inclu
Muslims, trade unionists, anti-fascists and even abuse survivors have spoken o
against their detrimental effects.156 Anti-Muslim attacks in Rotherham have risen,
local communities have been held collectively responsible for the crimes of ind
viduals, young Muslim children report being bullied as ‘groomers’ and anti-Mus
lim opinions published as letters in the local press highlight some ways in whic
the local racial landscape seems radically transformed by the racialisation of th
‘grooming gang’ cases.157 A recent study by britton158 has detailed how Muslim
men in Rotherham have developed strategies with which to navigate eve
instances of racism brought on by the racialisation of the CSE scandal.
Although so-called ‘grooming gang’ cases have undoubtedly involved horrific
abuses,159 it is clear overall that a disproportionate, politicised and racialis
panic has emerged, in its most extreme forms helping ‘justify’ racist mu
alongside the New Zealand massacre just discussed, at the local level an elder
Muslim man and Rotherham resident Mushin Ahmed was beaten to death by

16 Race & Class 00(0)
two of his white neighbours whilst repeatedly being called a ‘Paki’ and a
‘groomer’. Eighty-one-year-old grandfather Ahmed was attacked whilst walking
to his local mosque; he was kicked so hard a trainer imprint was left on his face
and it was determined that he was targeted ‘for no better reason than Mr Ahme
was Asian’.160 As we have explored in this article, the term ‘groomer’ has devel-
oped to become a potent racial signifier and term of racist abuse directed squar
at those perceived to be Muslim.161
Racial stereotypes can translate into structural racism
Although targeted research is needed, there is an obvious risk that racial stereo
types around ‘grooming’ will translate into structural racism and fuel discrimi-
nation across safeguarding and criminal justice responses.162 Indeed, the Drew
Review of South Yorkshire Police’s responses to CSE emphasised the dangers of
‘too narrow a working definition’ of CSE and concluded that an undue focus on
‘red light areas . . . and gangs of men principally of Pakistani heritage led not
only the force but also probably the whole partnership to look for signs of exploi
tation in the wrong places’.163 focusing on Asian offenders may lead to visibility
and institutional biases, potentially affecting who is investigated, arrested and
prosecuted and skewing law enforcement data. The potential for discrimination
at court cannot be ruled out either, although large-scale analysis of court ver-
dicts suggested juries do not racially discriminate against sexual offence defen-
dants.164 Nevertheless, that research predates widespread racial stereotypes of
‘grooming gangs’ and future case simulation with juries might usefully focus on
this particular issue.
Since 2016, there has been a compulsory CSE ‘flag’ for police recorded crime
data.165 Although framed as a step towards improved data collection and analysis
to be most useful such flags should be interpreted and applied consistently. Her
there is an obvious risk that racial stereotyping fuels circular ‘proof’ of supposed
disproportionality. boundary issues around CSE are a notorious concern, w
some professionals worrying that the so-called ‘“grooming and pimping model”
has come to define CSE’.166 Indeed, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has report-
edly identified such inconsistencies ‘in reviewing and flagging CSE and CSA’ tha
it prefers to use the umbrella term ‘child sexual exploitation and abuse’ instead167
Differential investment could also exacerbate the perceived threat of ‘groom-
ing gangs’. An obvious example is operation Stovewood: the uk’s largest CSE
investigation, led by the NCA with a projected total cost of around £90 million
by 2024.168 Initiated in response to the Jay Report, it focuses on abuse in Rotherha
between 1997 and 2013 and has resulted in twenty convictions, many conform-
ing to racial stereotypes. Although too limited in number to affect national sta-
tistics greatly, these high-profile prosecutions may disproportionately influence
public perceptions.

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate17
Articulating alternatives and moving towards anti-racist feminist resp
In this section, we consider alternative ways of understanding and responding
CSE/CSA and counter-fixes to the misleading and harmful ‘grooming gang
narrative. We also sketch out how a commitment to anti-racist feminism could
drive future research, policy and practice, simultaneously prioritising and tack-
ling serious sexual violence while rejecting attempts to racialise the issues and
demonise minority communities.
first, too few credible experts in the child protection space have publicly cha
lenged the racialisation of CSE.169 More critical engagement with the issue of inac-
curate and harmful racial stereotyping is needed from NGos, policy-make
practitioners and academics with expertise around child sexual abuse and its p
vention. Since they operate from a position of influence and expertise, disenga
ment around racial stereotyping risks turning into complicity.
Second, a more robust, evidence-informed approach to tackling CSA is
dently needed. Although better data cannot prevent abuse per se, they are cru
in monitoring patterns and trends, informing prioritisation, identifying levers fo
intervention and evaluating counter-measures. Calls for a national CSA preva-
lence survey are therefore welcome.170 Due to the racialisation of CSE and its
vague and inconsistent parameters,171 there are discussions to be had as to
whether the term has outlived its usefulness and should be abandoned in favou
of CSA: the more neutral, inclusive and clearly-defined term. Note that inclusiv
ity does not preclude focusing specific analyses or interventions on specific iss
disaggregation, precision and context-specificity are vital in tackling crime
Nevertheless, data and their collection are not neutral and any categorisation o
typologies must be theoretically and methodologically solid and not built
around racial stereotypes.
Third, the fixation on the ‘uniquely dangerous masculinities of Muslim men’172
encourages hyper-simplistic and inaccurate understandings of how and w
abuse occurs. Rates of CSA are high across different countries and groups, und
mining the notion that certain groups are inherently more abusive than others.173
Although traditionally approached through the lens of individual psychopathol-
ogy, decades of research into CSA show that offenders are remarkably heterog
neous and there are few meaningful individual-level predictors.174 Recognition is
growing – albeit not yet mainstream – that CSA, like any human behavi
results from an interactionbetweenindividuals and their environments.175
Although people differ in their propensity to offend, their opportunities to do so
moderated by a whole host of factors, among them demographic, familial, cul-
tural, occupational, institutional and structural considerations.176 These intersect-
ing factors help explain why certain groups can be differentially represented in
certain offending contexts, without meaning factors like ethnicity (or indeed re
gion) are in themselves causal. An increased focus on opportunities also opens
new avenues to intervention, such as contextual safeguarding.177 An approach to
understanding and tackling harm outside the family, contextual safeguard

18 Race & Class 00(0)
considers the immediate physical and social environments in which harm occur
and how places and practices might be modified to reduce risk and build resil-
ience. Greater adoption of such approaches would help shift away from generic
‘prevention’ through one-size-fits-all awareness-raising or education at one end
of the spectrum and prosecution at the other. Although prosecution is importan
– not least symbolically – it comes too late when harm is already done, has limit
deterrent effect and makes little overall dent in crime.178 Moreover, CSA is clearly
not something for the police alone to tackle: other parties (e.g. health, social ca
education, charities, community groups, families) have vital roles to play
their contributions must be encouraged.
fourth, the misapprehension that ‘grooming gangs’ flourished primarily due
to ‘political correctness’ must be tackled. Decrying political correctness (usually
in the context of racialised minorities) is common among rightwing and far-right
commentators but detracts from broader systemic issues that require attention179
Responses to CSE in general have suffered widespread and well-documen
problems.180 before interest in ‘grooming gangs’ exploded, CSE was probab
fairly easy to ignore because of low reporting levels, limited understanding, low
prioritisation and victims’ lack of social capital. Long-standing concerns existed
that police and particularly prosecutors were reluctant to pursue cases for fear
victims would not make credible witnesses.181 Moreover, unsympathetic atti-
tudes to sexually exploited children likely reflect broader prejudices around who
constitutes a credible and ‘deserving’ victim.182 Remember too that rape myths
and victim blaming are not confined to criminal justice and child protection pro-
fessionals: they are common among the general public.183
fifth, CSE can be challenging and costly to investigate and prosecute. Years o
austerity measures have hit criminal justice agencies hard,184 meaning they may
not be adequately resourced, trained and incentivised to respond as effectively
possible to sexual offences. Police and prosecutors involved in major CSE cases
indeed described them as unusually complex and resource-intensive.185 They
also flagged tensions with performance management culture, stating for examp
that the extent of victim care ‘just doesn’t match up against any [policing] perfo
mance indicators’ or that pursuing difficult cases conflicts with ‘serious perfor-
mance pressure’ in the CPS to win as many sexual offence cases as possible.186
Changes in policy and top-down mandates around CSE must be matched
adequate resourcing and proper accommodation of its complexities. Since law
enforcement-led approaches play a central role at present, they should b
improved wherever possible. In making the above recommendations,we
acknowledge that ‘women of color, immigrant, queer, transgender, poor, a
other marginalized women are often further brutalized – rather than protected –
by the police’.187 The role and indeed capacity of police and the criminal justice
system to prevent sexual violence have long been called into question by aboli-
tionists and other campaigners, drawing upon a history of state and institutiona
failure in dealing with violence against women and girls (VAWG).188 one legacy

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate19
of such failures has been the attempts by some groups to develop gras
community-based approaches to dealing with sexual violence that directly cha
lenge approaches (described as ‘dominant feminisms’) that readily invoke
tools of the ‘carceral state’.189 As Phipps argues, it is women of colour who have
long been doing this largely unacknowledged intersectional work at the grass-
roots: ‘These activists understand that single-issue politics is not resistance, th
feminism which does not centre the most marginalised is not fit for purpose.’190
We recognise the limits of police-led approaches (practically and politically) in
addressing CSA and call for greater investment in the funding of specialist VAW
services – particularly those developed for and led by marginalised groups.
The sixth issue then, especiallyimportant when consideringalternative
approaches rooted in a commitment to anti-racist feminism, is that the impact
austerity are also evident in the chronic underfunding of support service
victims and survivors of sexual offences. In Rotherham, the focus of so
attention, counselling services are reportedly extremely oversubscribed w
waiting times averaging seven months.191 The government’s past and proposed
spending on sexual offence support services192 is dwarfed by the outlay on figure-
head inquiries and investigations. for example, the total funding for rape crisis
services across England and Wales was just £7.2 million in 2018/19,193 compared
with operation Stovewood’s budget of £12 million.194 We reject boris Johnson’s
outrageous characterisation of investigations into non-recent child sexual abus
as ‘spaffing’ money.195 There are, however, difficult conversations to be had about
how finite funds can be spent most effectively for current, past and future vic-
tims. Specialist CSE services for bME victims are reportedly particularly under-
funded.196 Despite calls for more inclusive responses,197 a recent review found
‘little evidence about how sexual violence interventions in the uk accommodat
diversity or pay attention to issues of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality or disabil-
ity’.198 Looking beyond CSE to the broader VAWG sector, Imkaan’s recent report
is a damning indictment of chronic underfunding of long-established, specialist
services. Imkaan, the uk’s only second-tier organisation dedicated to addressin
violence against bME women, describes bME VAWG services as,
‘the poor relation’ of the wider ending VAWG movement. The sector has a
long history of underfunding and political marginalisation, which for individ-
ual organisations has impacted their survival and their ability to sustain the
vital work that they do.199
Shortfalls in funding for VAWG services require urgent redress, particular
where unique, specialist services for bME clients are concerned. Spendin
often directed towards generic, cheaper (and, more often than not, white-led)
organisations at the expense of specialist bME services, creating not just
inequality of funding but an inequality of services that deprives minorities of th
support they need.200

20 Race & Class 00(0)
finally, the ‘grooming gangs’ discourse should be addressed by a genui
engagement with anti-racist feminism perspectives. Racial stereotyping ha
undoubtedly led to fractures within anti-racist and feminist movements, which
are themselves marked by attempts by black and Asian women to organise on
their own terms against sexual abuse, racism and patriarchy.201 It also affects the
capacity of minority groups to discuss preventing sexual abuse without fuelling
racist stereotyping and scapegoating.202 As Gopal argues, contradictions within
activist communities need to be confronted too since ‘[i]t is, of course, perfectly
possible to be racist in the name of feminism or misogynist while laying claim to
antiracism’.203 backlash around Sarah Champion’s outrageous article for The Sun
(discussed earlier) demonstrated that some activists, politicians and the w
public are at least alert and responsive to attempts to whip up racist animosity
against Muslim minorities. The processes of racialisation examined in this article
obscure from view institutional failures, contemptible attitudes towards victims,
many of them working-class girls and young women, and a reluctance to acknow
edge that austerity-related cuts have decimated services dedicated to tac
sexual abuse and violence.204 Culturalist, essentialist explanations of why Muslim
men sexually abuse children must be rejected. Reliant on multitudinous racial
stereotypes, they exceptionalise sexual abuse as the preserve of particular com
munities rather than acknowledging it is an everyday problem across brit
society. As Grewal notes, ‘Muslim men are not considered sufficiently developed
individuals who could actively decide on their actions. They are completely at th
mercy of their culture, which is itself understood as one based upon viol
against women, misogyny and lack of respect for individual autonomy.’205
Culturalist understandings thus impede genuine work to tackle sexual violence
by ‘justifying’ initiatives ‘that have to do more with teaching “them” how
behave than it does any meaningful anti-violence objective’.206
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article and Ella Cockbain would
like to thank all those who gave her advice and encouragement when she was facing a nasty bac
lash after critiquing quilliam’s report: your support meant a lot. This article was not funded by an
particular grant and we have no conflicts of interest to declare.
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Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate21
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2 (2015), p. 43.
18 formerly a reporter and editor, brian Cathcart is now Professor of Journalism at kingston
university. He is also a founder and ex-director of Hacked off, which campaigns in the uk
for a free and accountable press. Paddy french is a former current affairs producer, who no
edits the Press Gang website: an independent investigative website that exposes rogue jou
nalism. See b. Cathcart and P. french, UNMASKED: Andrew Norfolk, The Times Newspaper a
Anti-Muslim Reporting - a case to answer (London: unmasked books, 2019).
19 In which Norfolk, writing in The Times, misleadingly claimed a ‘white Christian child’ was
left distressed after being placed in Muslim households in Tower Hamlets. The press regu-
lator upheld a complaint against the article, headlined ‘Christian child forced into Muslim
foster care’ (see https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/apr/24/complaint-upheld-
over-times-story-about-london-girl-fostered-with-muslim-family).

22 Race & Class 00(0)
20 Cathcart and french, UNMASKED, p. 2.
21 Cathcart and french, UNMASKED, pp. 5–6.
22 ‘The Times view on media campaigners and Andrew Norfolk: Press Gang’, The Times, 27 Jun
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-media-campaigners-and-andrew
-norfolk-press-gang-7fd352sds.
23 E. Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’; Gill and Harrison, ‘Child
grooming and sexual exploitation’; T. Patel, ‘Cultural repertoires and modern menaces: the
media’s racialised coverage of child sexual exploitation’, in M. bhatia, S. Poynting and W.
Tufail (eds), Media, Crime and Racism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 33–47
Tufail and S. Poynting, ‘Muslim and dangerous: “Grooming” and the politics of racialisation’,
in D. Pratt and R. Woodlock (eds), Fear of Muslims?: international perspectives on Islamopho
(basel: Springer International Publishing, 2016).
24 Note that rigorous empirical research is needed to examine the extent to which such terms
reserved for ethnic minority offenders. our crude searches are intended for illustrative pur-
poses only: we have not searched extensively for synonyms or screened results for irrelevan
or duplicative material. Search conducted 15 october 2019 on Nexis (formerly LexisNexis)
using the keyword ‘grooming gang*’ between a) 05/01/02–04/01/11 and b) 05/01/11–
15/10/19 (a broadly equivalent but slightly shorter period). The * is a search convention tha
denotes that a word may be truncated (i.e. gang* would also return gangs). The database
covers newspapers, blogs, videos, etc. The majority of results (69%, n = 3,929) came from u
sources.
25 The subset of results also featuring one or more of the (fairly modest set of) keywo
Muslim*, Islam*, Asian* or Pakistan* (n = 3,073, 54.4%).
26 Crown Prosecution Service, Interim Guidance on Prosecuting Cases of Child Sexual Ab
(London: CPS, 2013).
27 S. Miah, ‘The groomers and the question of race’, Identity Papers: a journal of British and Iris
studies 1, no. 1 (2015), pp. 54–66; Patel, ‘Cultural repertoires and modern menaces’; Tufail,
‘Rotherham, Rochdale and the racialised threat’; W. Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political cor-
rectness”: the racialisation of the Rotherham child sexual abuse Scandal’, in M. bhatia et al.
Media, Crime and Racism (pp. 49–71); Tufail and Poynting, ‘Muslim and dangerous’.
28 Miah, ‘The groomers and the question of race’.
29 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’.
30 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’.
31 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’.
32 M. Salter and S. Dagistanli, ‘Cultures of abuse: “sex grooming”, organised abuse and race in
Rochdale, uk’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 4, no. 2 (2015),
33 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’; Tufail and Poynting, ‘Muslim and dangerous
34 A. Lentin, ‘Europe and the silence about race’, European Journal of Social Theory 11
(2008), pp. 487–503; Patel, ‘Cultural repertoires and modern menaces’; J. Solomos an
back, ‘Conceptualising racisms: social theory, politics and research’, Sociology 28, no. 1 (19
pp. 143–61; Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’.
35 S. Champion, ‘british Pakistani men ARE raping and exploiting white girls . . . and it’s time
we faced up to it’, The Sun, 10 August 2017, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4218648/brit-
ish-pakistani-men-raping-exploiting-white-girls/.
36 W. Tufail, ‘The racialised and Islamophobic framing of the Rotherham and Rochdale child
sexual abuse scandals’, in I. Awan and I. Zempi (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Islamopho
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), pp. 147–60); JuST Yorkshire, A Temperature Check Report: un
standing and assessing the impact of Rotherham MP, Sarah Champion’s comments in the Su
paper on 10 August 2017 (bradford: JuST Yorkshire, 2018).
37 J. Elgot and G. Ruddick, ‘Sarah Champion distances herself from Sun article on british Pakist
men’, The Guardian, 16 August 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/16/
sarah-champion-complaint-sun-article-british-pakistani-men.

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate23
38 G. Ruddick, ‘Press watchdog clears Sun writer who referred to “the Muslim problem”’, The
Guardian, 23 November 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/23/press-
watchdog-clears-sun-writer-who-referred-to-the-muslim-problem.
39 bbC News, ‘The Sun cleared over “Muslim Problem” Trevor kavanagh article’, BBC News, 2
November 2017, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42102361.
40 A. Cowburn, ‘Jeremy Corbyn “wrong to sack” Sarah Champion over Sun article on british
Pakistani men, says Sajid Javid’, The Independent, 17 August 2017, https://www.inde
dent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sajid-javid-says-jeremy-corbyn-wrong-to-dismiss-equalities-
minister-over-sun-newspaper-article-on-a7897956.html.
41 The letter can be viewed at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59d3becfa803bb9c
126c3e/t/5b56fe90352f53339a70bdc1/1532427923797/Ho+Response.pdf.
42 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’.
43 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’.
44 A. Norfolk, ‘Sajid Javid orders research into ethnic origin of sex grooming gangs’, The Time
26 July 2018, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sajid-javid-orders-research-into-ethnic-
origin-of-sex-grooming-gangs-v97lc5mdk.
45 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’.
46 A. Mohdin, ‘Sajid Javid lambasted for “Asian paedophiles” tweet’, The Guardian, 20 october
2018, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/20/sajid-javid-lambasted-for-asian
-paedophiles-tweet-huddersfield.
47 M. okwonga, ‘The Dangers of Priti Patel’s racial gatekeeping’, Byline Times, 3 october 2019
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/10/03/the-dangers-of-priti-patels-racial-gatekeeping/.
48 See D. Miller, ‘Sikh peer accuses bbC of “prejudice” as he quits Radio 4 show after 35 year
The Scotsman, 4 october 2019, https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/sikh-peer-accuses
bbc-of-prejudice-as-he-quits-radio-4-show-after-35-years-1-5017507. Interestingly, the mat
rial in question related to the ‘forced conversion’ narrative, which has been discredited by
Sian (see later in this article).
49 See A. McSmith, ‘Howard sacks peers for endorsing ukIP’, The Independent, 30 April 2004,
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/howard-sacks-peers-for-endorsing-
ukip-8002496.html.
50 Hansard, ‘Grooming gangs, House of Lords debate’, Vol. 797 (London: Hansard, 14
2019). Available at: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2019-05-14/debates/349fA275-
Cb65-45C0-87C7-EE16D1fD1b0A/GroomingGangs.
51 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’.
52 A. Meleagrou-Hitchens and H. brun, A Neo Nationalist Network: the English Defence League
Europe’s Counter-Jihad Movement (London: king’s College London, 2013), p. 61.
53 P. McLoughlin, Easy Meat: inside Britain’s grooming gang scandal (2016) was published by
New English Review Press, the publishing arm of a conservative magazine heavily involved
in the ‘counter-jihad’ movement (pp. 1, 24). See, e.g., http://powerbase.info/index.ph
New_English_Review.
54 See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-ban-tommy-robinson
-website-koran-a8812111.html
55 Meleagrou-Hitchens and brun, A Neo Nationalist Network, p. 61.
56 The uk Independence Party (ukIP) was originally set up by disaffected Conservatives
including Nigel farage as a home for anti-immigrant Eurosceptics. under Gerald batten, its
leader from April 2018 to June 2019, it morphed from rightwing to far-right and today cam-
paigns on a largely anti-Muslim platform. P. Walker, ‘Tommy Robinson appointed as ukIP’s
“grooming gangs adviser”’, The Guardian, 22 November 2018, https://www.theguardi
com/politics/2018/nov/22/tommy-robinson-ukip-grooming-gangs-adviser.
57 M. Day, ‘Czech ruling party distances itself from invitation to Tommy Robinson to speak
in parliament amid outcry’, The Telegraph, 5 April 2019, https://www.telegraph.co.uk
news/2019/04/05/czech-ruling-party-distances-invitation-tommy-robinson-speak/.

24 Race & Class 00(0)
58 ‘“Senior member” of English Defence League jailed for sexually abusing 10-year-old girl’,
The Independent, 27 february 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/edl-
english-defence-league-leigh-mcmillan-jailed-paedophile-old-bailey-a8231231.html.
59 L. Dearden, ‘Tommy Robinson caused Huddersfield grooming gang member to appeal con-
viction, court ruling reveals’, The Independent, 9 July 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/
news/uk/crime/tommy-robinson-court-case-facebook-live-video-judge-latest-a8996626.html.
60 Cockbain, Offender and Victim Networks; L. kelly, J. Lovett and L. Regan, A gap or a chasm?
Attrition in reported rape cases (London: Home office Research, 2005).
61 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’; Dearden, ‘Tommy Robinson
caused Huddersfield grooming gang member to appeal conviction, court ruling reveals’.
62 H. Rafiq and M. Adil, Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation: Dissecting ‘Grooming Ga
(London: quilliam, 2017). In this and the following paragraphs, page references to the repor
are given in the text.
63 Haras Rafiq is CEo of the controversial quilliam foundation. His claimed expertise is
the area of countering extremism. Muna Adil is listed as a researcher with the quilli
foundation. Neither appear to have any relevant scientific or professional training or exper-
tise to conduct a study on CSE.
64 The organisation released a commentary and a letter from their IT company vehemently de
ing changes (available at: http://journal.quilliaminternational.com/2018/11/10/letter-from-
pioneer-solutions/), but the metadata on the two different versions of the report expose the
65 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’.
66 Rafiq and Adil, Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation, p. 18.
67 No workable research definition was provided and three different descriptors were us
(each of which would have a different remit): ‘“grooming gang” offences’, ‘group-bas
localised street grooming of young girls’ and ‘all group child-sex offences’.
68 Child Exploitation and online Protection Centre, Threat Assessment of Child Sexual Exploitat
and Abuse (London: CEoP, 2013).
69 R. Reiner, ‘Media-made criminality: the representation of crime in the mass media’, in M.
Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (oxford: oxfor
university Press, 2011), pp. 376–416.
70 Hall et al., Policing the Crisis.
71 k. bhatti-Sinclair and C. Smethurst, ‘understanding group localised child sexual exploita-
tion’, Seen and Heard Journal 28, no. 4 (2018), pp. 41–54; k. bhatti-Sinclair and C. Sutcliffe,
‘Group localised child sexual exploitation: identifying those who have been prosecute
Preprint (2018), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3248665.
72 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’; J. Spooner and J. Stubbs, ‘Groom
gangs: quilliam and the myth of the 84 percent’, Medium, 25 January 2018, https://medium.
com/@Reg_Left_Media/grooming-gangs-quilliam-the-myth-of-the-84-percent-cc834b57fcf3.
73 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’.
74 N. Ahmed, ‘The quilliam foundation is financed by Tea-Party conservatives investigated
by Sam Harris’, Medium, 8 January 2016, https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-
quilliam-foundation-is-financed-by-tea-party-conservatives-investigated-by-sam-harris-
1e43d54f0bee; N. Malik, ‘Islam’s New “Native Informants”’, The New York Review of Books,
June 2018, https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/07/islams-new-native-informants/;
b. quinn, ‘Tommy Robinson link with quilliam foundation raises questions’, The Guardian,
12 october 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/12/tommy-robinson-
quilliam-foundation-questions-motivation.
75 Malik (2018) is a rare exception to the lack of mainstream scrutiny.
76 S. forsdick, ‘Sunday Times headline “Asians make up 80 per cent of child groomers” breach
standards code, IPSo rules’, The Press Gazette, 20 April 2018, https://www.pressgazet
co.uk/Sunday-times-headline-asians-make-up-80-per-cent-of-child-groomers-breached-
standards-code-ipso-rules/.

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate25
77 A. Pearson, ‘It’s not racist to tell the truth about grooming gangs’, The Telegraph, 12 Dece
2017, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/not-racist-tell-truth-grooming-gangs/.
78 ITV News, ‘ukIP spokesman accused of being “alarmist” after calling grooming gangs “holo
caust of our children”’, ITV News, 21 September 2018, https://www.itv.com/news/2018-09-
21/muslim-sex-gangs-responsible-for-holocaust-of-our-children-claims-ukip/.
79 Hansard, House of Lords, Child Sexual Exploitation: Grooming Gangs, Volume 789, 1
2018 (London: Hansard, 2018). Available at: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2018-03-
13/debates/AA1542AD-0A4f-4A1b-b93E-695AADDA26C2/ChildSexualExploitationGroo
mingGangs?highlight=quilliam-–contribution-CAC4b4E1-D327-412E-9fE6-80C0A2D4f26E.
80 A. Lawton, ‘Planned contempt of court statement by Tommy Robinson’, 2018, https://www.
andrewlawton.ca/planned-contempt-of-court-statement-by-tommy-robinson/.
81 SYuk, The Religiously Aggravated Sexual Exploitation of Young Sikh Women Across
(birmingham: S.M.A.R.T. and SYuk, 2018).
82 A. Lusher, ‘Influential Sikh youth group associating with far-right EDL founder Tomm
Robinson’, The Independent, 16 october 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk
home-news/sikh-youth-uk-muslim-film-university-tommy-robinson-edl-sex-groomers-
islamophobia-racism-a8002526.html.
83 Rafiq and Adil, Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation.
84 M. Dathan, ‘AbuSE IGNoRED Sexual exploitation of british Sikh girls by Muslim men has
been “ignored” by police due to “political correctness”’, The Sun, 25 November 2018, http
www.thesun.co.uk/news/7825480/sexual-exploitation-sikh-girls-ignored-police/.
85 See, e.g., https://twitter.com/SikhYouthuk_/status/966747298800775169?s=20.
86 L. Dearden, ‘Sikh Youth uk founder and sister charged with charity funding offences by ter-
ror police’, The Independent, 30 September 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk
crime/sikh-youth-uk-arrested-terror-police-sister-deepa-singh-a9127046.html.
87 SYuk, The Religiously Aggravated Sexual Exploitation, pp.11, 31.
88 k. Sian, ‘“forced” conversions in the british Sikh diaspora’, South Asian Popular Culture 9,
no. 2 (2011), pp. 115–30; k. Sian, Unsettling Sikh and Muslim Conflict: mistaken identities,
conversions, and postcolonial formations (Washington, DC: Lexington books, 2013).
89 J. Jhutti-Johal and S. Hundal, ‘The changing nature of activism among Sikhs in the
(London: Independent Commission for Countering Extremism, 2019).
90 Hansard, Grooming Gangs.
91 L. fekete, ‘The Muslim conspiracy theory and the oslo massacre’, Race & Class 53, no. 3 (2
pp. 30–47.
92 This term is a curious and facile linguistic device that seeks to connect fascism and Islamis
extremism. It emerged in the early 1990s, was popularised by former uS President George
bush in launching his ‘war on terror’ and has since been adopted by various rightwing, lib-
eral and even feminist commentators, see fekete, ‘The Muslim conspiracy theory’; S. Zemn
‘The shaping of Islam and Islamophobia in belgium, Race & Class 53, no. 1 (2011), pp. 28–
93 A. kundnani, ‘Islamism and the roots of liberal rage’, Race & Class 50, no. 2 (2008), pp. 40–
94 S. Hussein and S. Poynting, ‘We’re not multicultural, but. . .’, Journal of Intercultural Studie
38, no. 3 (2017), pp. 333–48; S. Poynting and A. Mason, ‘The new integrationism, the state
Islamophobia: retreat from multiculturalism in Australia’, International Journal of Law, Crim
and Justice 36, no. 4 (2008), pp. 230–46; A. kundnani, ‘Integrationism: the politics
Muslim racism’, Race & Class 48, no. 4 (2007), pp. 24–44.
95 A. kundnani, The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, extremism and the domestic war on
(London: Verso, 2014).
96 u. M. Vieten, ‘far right populism and women: the normalisation of gendered anti-Muslim
racism and gendered culturalism in the Netherlands’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 37, no
(2016), pp. 621–36; u. M. Vieten and S. Poynting, ‘Contemporary far right racist populism i
Europe’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 37, no. 6 (2016), pp. 533–40.

26 Race & Class 00(0)
97 S. keskinen, ‘borders of the finnish nation: media, politics and rape by “foreign” perpetra-
tors’, in E. Eide and k. Nikunen (eds), Media in Motion: cultural complexity and migration in t
Nordic region (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 107−24.
98 keskinen, Borders of the Finnish Nation.
99 keskinen, Borders of the Finnish Nation.
100 S. Dagistanli and k. Grewal, ‘Perverse Muslim masculinities in contemporary orientalist dis-
course: the vagaries of Muslim immigration in the West’, in G. Morgan and S. Poynting (eds)
Global Islamophobia: Muslims and moral panic in the West (Surrey: Ashgate, 2012), p. 126.
101 S. farris, In the Name of Women’s Rights: the rise of Femonationalism (Durham, NC:
university Press, 2017), p. 4.
102 The term ‘femocrat’ refers to female bureaucrats.
103 b. Whelan, ‘britain’s far right collapses amid infighting and legal woes’, Channel 4 News, 12
January 2013, https://www.channel4.com/news/britains-far-right-collapses-amid-infight-
ing-and-legal-woes.
104 S. Israel, ‘Rotherham trial: far right activists in the spotlight’, Channel 4 News, 20 october 20
https://www.channel4.com/news/by/simon-israel/blogs/activists-bent-targeting-asians.
105 L. blissett, ‘Why you should oppose the far right march on october 13th’, Red Pepp
october 2018, https://www.redpepper.org.uk/why-you-should-oppose-the-democratic-
football-lads-alliance-on-october-13th/.
106 Image of the flyer quote-tweeted here (https://twitter.com/TjayJT/status/105704708518968
1152?s=2) but the original has since been deleted. Photo of it available on request.
107 k. Razzall and Y. khan, ‘far-right and far-left extremists use abuse for own agenda - Sarah
Champion’, BBC News, 20 December 2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46635022.
108 b. quinn, ‘Tommy Robinson given nine-month jail sentence for contempt of court’, Th
Guardian, 11 July 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/11/tommy-rob-
inson-given-nine-month-jail-term-for-contempt-of-court.
109 J. Halliday, L. beckett and C. barr, ‘Revealed: the hidden global network behind Tom
Robinson’, The Guardian, 7 December 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/
dec/07/tommy-robinson-global-support-brexit-march.
110 J. Mayer, Dark Money: how a secretive group of billionaires is trying to buy political control in
(London: Scribe, 2016).
111 T. Griffin, ‘The problem with the quilliam foundation’, Open Democracy, 7 November
2016, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/problem-with-quilliam-
foundation/.
112 C. A. bail, Terrified: how anti-Muslim fringe organizations became mainstream (Princeton, NJ
oxford: Princeton university Press, 2015); N. Massoumi, T. Mills and D. Miller (eds) What Is
Islamophobia? Racism, social movements and the state (London: Pluto Press, 2017); N. Lean
J. L. Esposito, The Islamophobia Industry: how the Right manufactures fear of Muslims (Lond
Pluto Press, 2012).
113 S. Poynting, ‘What caused the Cronulla riot?’, Race & Class 48, no. 1 (2006), pp. 85–92; Tufa
‘Media, state and “political correctness”’.
114 In 2015, child sexual exploitation and abuse was identified as a ‘national threat’ in
Strategic Policing Requirement: a status that mandates that all police forces in England and
Wales must pay attention to a given issue and is thus intended to encourage its prioritisatio
(HM Government, 2015).
115 for example, Child Exploitation and online Protection Centre, Out of Mind, Out of Sight:
breaking down the barriers to understanding child sexual exploitation (London: CEoP, 2011)
Exploitation and online Protection Centre, Threat Assessment of Child Sexual Exploitation an
Abuse (London: CEoP, 2013); HM Government, Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation (London:
HM Government, 2015); HM Government, Child sexual exploitation: definition and a g
for practitioners, local leaders and decision makers working to protect children from child se

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate27
exploitation (London: HM Government, 2017a); HM Government; Tackling Child Sexu
Exploitation: progress Report. London: HM Government, 2017b).
116 H. bentley et al., How safe are our children? the most comprehensive overview of child pro
the UK (London: NSPCC, 2018).
117 bentley et al., How safe are our children?; kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale.
118 H. brayley and E. Cockbain, ‘british children can be trafficked too: towards an inclu
definition of internal child sex trafficking’, Child Abuse Review 23, no. 3 (2014), pp. 171−8
S. Clutton and J. Coles, Sexual Exploitation Risk Assessment Framework: a pilot study (Card
barnardo’s, 2007); Cockbain et al, Immaterial Boys; E. Cockbain and H. brayley, ‘Child sex-
ual exploitation and youth offending: a research note’, European Journal of Criminology 9,
6 (2012), pp. 689−700; Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England, ‘I thought I was
the only one. The only one in the world’: the Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s inquir
child sexual exploitation in gangs and groups, interim report (London: office of the Children
Commissioner for England, 2012); A. Sidebottom et al., ‘Missing children: risks, repeats and
responses’, Policing and Society (2019), pp. 1−14.
119 D. barrett and M. Melrose, ‘Courting controversy – children sexually abused through pros-
titution – are they everybody’s distant relatives but nobody’s children?’, Child and F
Law Quarterly 15, no. 4 (2003), pp. 371−82; E. Chase and J. Statham, ‘Commercial and sex
exploitation of children and young people in the uk – A review’, Child Abuse Review 14, no.
(2005), pp. 4−25.
120 Cockbain, Offender and Victim Networks.
121 barnardo’s, Report of the Parliamentary inquiry into the effectiveness of legislation for tack
sexual exploitation and trafficking within the UK (barkingside: barnardo’s, 2014).
122 kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale.
123 Norfolk, ‘Revealed: conspiracy of silence’.
124 Rafiq and Adil, Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation.
125 Annual average calculated based on the number of convicted offenders for the whole uk
found by The Times over fourteen years (n = 56) and quilliam twelve years (n = 264).
126 kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale.
127 J. Eaton, ‘Logically I know I’m not to blame but I still feel to blame’: exploring and measurin
tim blaming and self-blame of women who have been subject to sexual violence, PhD (univ
of birmingham, birmingham, 2019); kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale; D. McNeish and
S. Scott, Key Messages from Research on Children and Young People who Display Harmful
Behaviours (London: Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, 2018); Office for N
Statistics, Abuse During Childhood: findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales,
ending March 2016 (Newport: office for National Statistics, 2016); L. Radford, S. Corral, C.
bradley, H. fisher, C. bassett, N. Howat and S. Collishaw, Child Abuse and Neglect in the UK
Today (London: NSPCC, 2011).
128 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’.
129 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’.
130 Child Exploitation and online Protection Centre, Out of Mind, Out of Sight; Child Exploitation
and online Protection Centre, Threat Assessment; office of the Children’s Commissioner for
England, I thought I was the only one.
131 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’; kelly and karsna, Measuring
the scale.
132 Ministry of Justice, Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2016 (London: Minist
Justice, 2017).
133 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’; S. Gohir, Unheard Voices: sexual
exploitation of Asian girls and young women (birmingham: Muslim Womens Network, 2013
Tufail, Rotherham, Rochdale and the Racialised Threat.
134 Cockbain et al., Immaterial Boys.

28 Race & Class 00(0)
135 Z. Ahmed in ‘finding a Voice: 40 years on’, in A. Wilson, Finding a Voice: Asian women in
Britain (Montreal: Daraja Press, 2018), pp. 204–09; C. fox, ‘It’s not on the radar’: the hidden
sity of children and young people at risk of sexual exploitation in England (barkingside: barn
2016); Gohir, Unheard Voices; C. McNaughton, C. Nicholls, E. Cockbain, H. brayley, S. Harve
C. fox, C. Paskell and N. Jago, Research on the Sexual Exploitation of Boys and Young Men: a
scoping study, summary of findings (barkingside: barnardo’s, 2014).
136 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’; J. Harker, ‘This is how racism take
root’, The Guardian, 22 July 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/
jul/22/how-racism-takes-root; Patel, ‘Cultural repertoires and modern menaces’.
137 kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale.
138 Patel, ‘Cultural repertoires and modern menaces’.
139 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’.
140 Casually quiet, of Pigs and Men, (2019). Retrieved (with consent) from https://twitter.com/
Casuallyq/status/1086316320831008769 and reproduced with permission.
141 Tweet cited with permission. https://twitter.com/kateElysiaNWo/status/10506866943563
24352?s=20.
142 Tweet cited with permission. No hyperlink available as account is locked.
143 Tweet cited with permission. No hyperlink available as account is locked.
144 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’.
145 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’, p. 66.
146 J. Halliday, ‘far right “infiltrating children’s charities with anti-Islam agenda”’, The Guardian,
5 March 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/05/far-right-infiltrating-
childrens-charities-with-anti-islam-agenda.
147 Donations were solicited before registering as a charity. No data protection statement was i
place before opening to calls and there was no information as to call handlers’ suitability an
vetting for the task.
148 Halliday, ‘far right “infiltrating children’s charities with anti-Islam agenda”’.
149 We chose not to provide supporting references here because it was not possible to do so wit
out identifying individuals and we felt it was not right to single people out in this context.
150 L. fekete, The Muslim Conspiracy Theory and the Oslo Massacre, p. 34.
151 C. Lewis, ‘Gunman in New Zealand terror attacks had “for Rotherham” written on ammo
used in shootings’, The Star, 15 March 2019, https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/gunman-in-
new-zealand-terror-attacks-had-for-rotherham-written-on-ammo-used-in-shootings-73571.
152 Cockbain, ‘When bad evidence is worse than no evidence’.
153 L. Dearden, ‘Darren osborne: how finsbury Park terror attacker became “obsessed” with
Muslims in less than a month’, The Independent, 2 february 2018, https://www.independent
co.uk/news/uk/crime/darren-osborne-finsbury-park-attack-who-is-tommy-robinson-mus-
lim-internet-britain-first-a8190316.html
154 Dearden, ‘Darren osborne: how finsbury Park terror attacker became “obsessed” with
Muslims in less than a month’.
155 Tufail and Poynting, ‘Muslim and dangerous’.
156 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’.
157 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’; JuST Yorkshire, A Temperature Check Repor
158 J. britton, ‘Challenging the racialization of child sexual exploitation: Muslim men, racism and
belonging in Rotherham’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 42, no. 5 (2019), pp. 688–706.
159 Cockbain, Offender and Victim Networks.
160 bbC News, ‘Mushin Ahmed death: Two men jailed over racist Rotherham killing’, BBC News,
2016, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-35688543.
161 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’.
162 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’; Tufail and Poynting, ‘Muslim and
dangerous’.

Cockbain and Tufail: Failing victims, fuelling hate29
163 J. Drew, An independent review of South Yorkshire Police’s handling of child sexual
1997-2016 (Sheffield: S. Y. P. a. C. Commissioner, 2016).
164 C. Thomas, Are Juries Fair? (London: Ministry of Justice, 2010).
165 kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale.
166 kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale, p. 8.
167 kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale, p. 7.
168 D. Higgens, ‘Rotherham abuse: investigation into grooming of teenagers to continue after
more men convicted, National Crime agency says’, The Independent, 28 August 2019, http
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rotherham-grooming-gangs-abuse-nca-opera-
tion-stovewood-a9082941.html; L. Leeson, ‘The fight against historical child sexual exploita
tion in Rotherham’, The Yorkshire Post, 27 August 2019, https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/
news/crime/the-fight-against-historical-child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham-1-9956418.
169 Some exceptions include fox, ‘It’s not on the radar’; J. Eaton ‘british Pakistani Men
White british Girls: bad apples or a bad barrel?’, Victim Focus blog, 2 october 2017, https://
victimfocus.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/british-pakistani-men-raping-white-british-girls-
bad-apples-or-a-bad-barrel/.
170 kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale.
171 Cockbain, ‘Grooming and the “Asian sex gang predator”’; Cockbain et al., Immaterial Boys
172 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’, p. 50.
173 N. Pereda. G. Guilera, M. forns and J. Gómez-benito, ‘The international epidemiology
child sexual abuse: a continuation of finkelhor (1994)’, Child Abuse & Neglect 33, no. 6 (20
pp. 331–42.
174 k. kaufman, M. Mosher, H. Carter and L. Estes, ‘An empirically based situational prevention
model for child sexual abuse’, in R. Wortley and S. Smallbone (eds), Situational Prevention
Child Sexual Abuse (Cullompton: Willan, 2006), pp. 101–44.
175 R. Wortley, ‘Exploring the person-situation interaction in situational crime prevention’, in
N. Tilley and G. farrell (eds), The Reasoning Criminologist: essays in honour of Ronald V. Cl
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), pp. 170–79.
176 Wortley et al., ‘Exploring the person-situation interaction’.
177 C. firmin, C. Warrington and J. Pearce, ‘Sexual exploitation and its impact on developing
sexualities and sexual relationships: the need for contextual social work interventions’, The
British Journal of Social Work 46, no. 8 (2016), pp. 2318–337.
178 D. M. kennedy, Deterrence and Crime Prevention: reconsidering the prospect of sanction (A
Routledge, 2009).
179 Tufail, ‘Media, state and “political correctness”’.
180 barnardo’s, Whose Child Now? Fifteen years of working to prevent the sexual exploitation o
dren in the UK (barkingside: barnardo’s, 2009); Barnardo’s, Puppet on a String: the
need to cut children free from sexual exploitation (barkingside: barnardo’s, 2011); b
Cutting Them Free: how is the UK progressing in protecting its children from sexual exploit
(barkingside: barnardo’s, 2012); H. beckett, C. firmin, P. Hynes and J. Pearce, Tackling Child
Sexual Exploitation: a study of current practice in London (Luton: university of bedfordshi
2014); S. Jago and J. Pearce, Gathering Evidence of the Sexual Exploitation of Children and
People: a scoping exercise (Luton: university of bedfordshire, 2008).
181 barnardo’s, Puppet on a String; Child Exploitation and online Protection Centre, Out
Mind, Out of Sight; Cockbain, Offender and Victim Networks; Crown Prosecution Ser
Interim Guidance on Prosecuting Cases of Child Sexual Abuse (London: CPS, 2013); House
Commons, Child Sexual Exploitation and the Response to Localised Grooming (Londo
Stationery office, 2013).
182 Cockbain, Offender and Victim Networks; kelly and karsna, Measuring the scale.
183 Eaton, ‘Logically I know I’m not to blame but I still feel to blame’; H. Taaffe, Sounds familia
(London: The fawcett Society, 2017).

30 Race & Class 00(0)
184 N. Mann, P. Devendran and S. Lundrigan, ‘Policing in a time of austerity: understanding the
public protection paradox through qualitative interviews with police monitoring officers’,
Policing: A Journal Of Policy And Practice (2018).
185 Cockbain, Offender and Victim Networks.
186 Cockbain, Offender and Victim Networks, pp. 136, 143.
187 V. Law, ’Where abolition meets action: women organizing against gender violence’,
Contemporary Justice Review 14 (2011), p. 85.
188 b. Hudson, ‘Restorative justice: the challenge of sexual and racial violence’, Journal of Law a
Society 25, no. 2 (1998), pp. 237–56.
189 E. Whalley and C. Hackett, ‘Carceral feminisms: the abolitionist project and undoing domi-
nant feminisms’, Contemporary Justice Review 20, no. 4, pp. 456–73.
190 A. Phipps, ‘The fight against sexual violence’, Soundings: a journal of politics and culture 71
(2019), pp. 62–74.
191 Hansard, Grooming Gangs.
192 Ministry of Justice, ‘£5m increase for rape and sexual abuse victims’, Press release, Ministry
of Justice, 2019, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/5m-increase-for-rape-and-sexual-
abuse-victims.
193 Department of Health, Home office, Ministry of Justice, Prime Minister’s office, 10 Downing
Street, & The Rt Hon David Cameron, ‘PM unveils tough new measures to tackle child sexua
exploitation’,press release,2015, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-unveils-
tough-new-measures-to-tackle-child-sexual-exploitation.
194 Higgens, ‘Rotherham abuse’.
195 The term ‘spaffing’ is particularly insulting in this context as it is a slang word for ejaculating
E. Johnson, ‘Letter to boris Johnson’, Rape Crisis Scotland, 2019, https://www.rapecrisisscot-
land.org.uk/news/blog/a-letter-to-boris-johnson/.
196 Ahmed in ‘finding a Voice’; Gohir, Unheard Voices.
197 fox, ‘It’s not on the radar’; McNaughton Nicolls et al., Research on the sexual exploitation of
and young men.
198 S. Scott, D. McNeish, S. bovarnick and J. Pearce, What Works in Responding to Child Sexual
Exploitation (London: Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, 2019).
199 Imkaan, From Survival to Sustainability: critical issues for the specialist black and ‘minority e
ending violence against women and girls sector in the UK, 2018, https://docs.wixstatic.com/
/2f475d_9cab044d7d25404d85da289b70978237.pdf.
200 Imkaan, From Survival to Sustainability; L. okolosie, ‘Women of colour fleeing violence need
help – not penalties for who they are’, The Guardian, 4 January 2019, https://www.theguard-
ian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/04/bme-women-violence-help-report-underfunding.
201 S. Siddiqui, ‘Anti-racist feminism: engaging with the past’, Race & Class 61, no. 2 (2
pp. 96–104.
202 A. Davis, ‘The color of violence against women’, ColorLines 3, no. 3 (2000), https://www.
colorlines.com/articles/color-violence-against-women; Y. Jiwani, ‘Walking a tightrope: the
many faces of violence in the lives of racialized immigrant girls and young women’, Violence
Against Women 11, no. 7 (2005), pp. 846–75; Gohir, Unheard Voices.
203 P. Gopal, ‘Speaking with difficulty: feminism and antiracism in britain after 9/11’, Feminist
Studies 39, no. 1 (2013), p. 103.
204 Tufail, Rotherham, Rochdale and the Racialised Threat; Imkaan, From Survival to Sustainabi
205 k. Grewal, ‘Australia, the feminist nation? Discourses of gender, “culture” and nation in the
“k brothers” gang rapes’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 33, no. 5 (2012), p. 522.
206 S. Razack, ‘Imperilled Muslim women, dangerous Muslim men, and civilized European
legal and social responses to forced marriages’, Feminist Legal Studies 12, no. 2 (2004), p. 1