Скачать или смотреть Fact Check: The Truth About Grooming Gangs

The first signs of widespread child sexual exploitation by gangs in the UK emerged in Rotherham. In 2010, five Asian men were jailed for sexual offences against underage girls in the South Yorkshire market town.

This led to an investigation by The Times which revealed many more girls in the area were being groomed for sex by British-Asian males – and that for many years authorities had often not been taking action despite warnings.

Continued allegations led to an independent report into Rotherham’s problems, which found that children as young as 11 had been beaten and raped by multiple people. Some were abducted and trafficked to other towns and cities.

The report said that about 1,400 children had been sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013 – and this was a “conservative estimate”. The majority of the abusers were predominantly of Pakistani heritage.

Similar exploitation was uncovered in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, when a child sex ring of nine men, eight of Pakistani and one of Afghan origin, were jailed in 2012 for exploiting girls as young as 13. Again it turned out that many victims had been dismissed as “child prostitutes” who did not want or deserve help. Rotherham and Rochdale have undoubtedly become the most notorious examples of these kinds of crimes, but many other areas have been affected too.

In the Shropshire town of Telford, up to 1,000 children could have been abused since the 1980s by sex gangs targeting girls as young as 11. In Huddersfield, another 20 British Asian men mainly of Pakistani heritage were convicted in 2018, having “used and abused” girls, who were plied with drink and drugs.

Asian gangs have also been jailed for grooming girls in Oxford, Derby, Bradford, Halifax and the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury.

As debate rages about whether there should be a national public inquiry into a child sex abuse scandal that rocked the country, here are the key issues, fact checked.

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