UK Politics

In fact, the strategy attributes record levels of abuse to the proliferation of online abuse and increased reporting of abuse, raising additional concerns over COVID-19-related isolation at home. Citing the National Crime Agency’s estimate, it suggests that at least “300,000 individuals in the UK pose a sexual threat to children”: 250,000 of whom operate on the dark web. It also details representative survey results from the Office for National Statistics, showing that the vast majority of abuse occurs in the home and most victims are abused by someone close to them, such as family members, friends or teachers. Research shows that most sex offenders act alone.

Focusing on so-called “grooming gangs” makes little sense in this context. But this nebulous and intrinsically racialised construct has been conceptualised from the start as groups who abuse offline and outside the home, schools, churches, sports clubs and other institutions. While there are important distinctions between intra-familial and extra-familial abuse, singling out “grooming gangs” for special attention is a clear political move.

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Fundamental barriers around definition, measurement and biases that the Home Office outlined are simply ignored in the child sexual abuse strategy, not resolved. Unlike most other issues covered, ‘grooming gangs’ receive several pages of discussion and specific action points. Yet, the otherwise extensive glossary fails even to define this supposedly ‘specific’ crime.

The Government is ignoring repeated warnings from research – including the Home Office’s own publication – about the inaccuracies and dangers of racialising abuse. Alongside fuelling discrimination and violence, this powerful racial stereotype has already helped other abuse to go unchecked. Although the child sexual abuse strategy repeatedly states that more is required to understand and prevent the abuse of children who are from ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, male and/or with disabilities, these important acknowledgements jar with the tired focus on ‘grooming gangs’.

Given the racial baggage around ‘grooming gangs’, the proposed responses risk condoning or even actively encouraging institutional racism. For example, ‘grooming gangs’ are the only issue on which the Government advocates “profiling” and the only form of offline abuse in the UK allocated specific investigative funding. The catalogue of horrors across political, educational, religious and other institutions documented in the ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse apparently do not merit similar attention.

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In spinning this new strategy to bring the conversation back to ‘grooming gangs’, the Government is once again deflecting from the desperate need for systemic change and proper investment in overstretched and under-funded services. If it is serious about child protection, it must do better.