There has been some publicity lately about a report written by Professor Alexis Jay called the “Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham.” Some of this commentary has been about the lack of commentary from feminists, particularly given that most of the children being exploited were females and that exploitation included rape.
Child sexual exploitation, for those of you not current in the Sacred Babble of Feminism, was once known as child prostitution.
A major reason why feminists are reluctant to comment is that these events happened on their watch.
The report covers the years from 1997 until 2013. From 1997 until 2010, the UK was run by the feminist party of choice: the Labour Party. Under Tony Blair, and later Gordon Brown, the avowed feminists sought to introduce all kinds of measures to protect women and their children (with fathers being clearly an optional extra for the state definition of “family”).
Since 2010, the country has been led by a coalition of the Conservatives, led by David Cameron, and the Liberal Democrats, led by Nick Clegg. This coalition has accommodated feminism in a way that would allow the casual onlooker to be unaware that the government had actually changed hands.
At the local level, the feminist-friendly Labour Party enjoyed a majority in the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council such that it was practically a one-party-town. From the report:
The Council comprises 63 elected members, of whom there are 49 Labour, 2 Conservatives, 10 UKIP and 2 Independents. Prior to the local elections in May 2014, there were 57 Labour, 4 Conservatives, 1 UKIP and 1 Independent.
Whatever these children may have lacked, it was not a lack of committees, boards, forums, new laws, and “multi-agency responses.”
Until 2004, responsibility for overseeing and coordinating a multi-agency response to child sexual abuse and exploitation lay with the Area Child Protection Committee. In early 2005, this responsibility passed to the Local Safeguarding Children Board (the Safeguarding Board), which was established by the Children Act 2004.
The new laws didn’t end there. The British Home Office released a pamphlet called “Children and Families: Safer from Sexual Crime” to herald the good news of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which, according to Professor Jay, provided “more specific and explicit wording” to make sure all kinds of sexual exploitation were criminalized.
Yes, and all sorts of groups, agencies, and government departments got funding, funding, and more funding. There were reports, conferences, action plans, and training seminars. Even the police joined the party with Operation Central as well as cooperating with all the aforementioned agencies.
All this and more, driven by feminist academics and feminist bureaucrats.
And while it keeps those feminist academics and bureaucrats funded, and feminist commentators everywhere are sanctimoniously claiming the taxpayers are funding “social justice,” many children are still, to this day, being shamelessly exploited by criminal elements right under their feminist noses.
But the feminist laws were not just simply ineffective. Consider this statement from the report:
In two of the cases we read, fathers tracked down their daughters and tried to remove them from houses where they were being abused, only to be arrested themselves when police were called to the scene.
The problem for the fathers was that, under British law, they have no rights when it comes to their own children. None whatsoever, thanks to feminist lobbying that goes back to the 1960s. With no rights to discipline their children, parents have all the responsibility of raising their children with no authority at all.
Therefore, when children are seduced by these criminals with booze, drugs, mobile phones, and other cheap but effective tricks, parents are powerless. But it’s not just parents who are powerless.
One parent, who agreed to her child being placed in a residential unit in order to protect her, wrote to children’s social care expressing her fears for her daughter’s safety. She described her despair that instead of being protected, her child was being exposed to even worse abuse than when she was at home:
“My child (age 13) may appear to be a mature child, yet some of her actions and the risks to which she constantly puts herself are those of a very immature and naïve person. She constantly stays out all night getting drunk, mixing with older mature adults, and refuses to be bound by any rules.”
Yes, the state is as guilty as any parent the normally shrill commentariat wish to castigate for letting these children run wild. And it is here where the real difficulty in dealing with these crimes emerges. As long as the children insist they are willing participants, feminist logic (from judges as much as social workers) and feminist laws prevent anyone else from “interfering” in their choices.
And unlike ordinary parents, children already “in care” can’t be taken from the state residential unit and put somewhere else “in care.” To make matters even worse, these feminist-approved residential units that keep children from their allegedly abusive fathers were, apparently, an excellent recruitment ground for underage prostitutes.
The alleged culprits also present two special problems for feminists. The report is clear that the children are being preyed on by men of predominantly Pakistani origin.
The first problem is ideological. Through the various waves, feminism has always maintained that “Patriarchy” is directly linked to Western society, capitalism, and colonialism. These forces have brought about the gender roles that feminists claim has caused inequality for females. Importantly, feminism declares this unfair because the gender roles are not inherent traits due to biological sex but instead “social constructs” designed to enforce and perpetuate “The Patriarchy.”
In most feminist writings, the White heterosexual male is the villain of the saga. Indeed, authors like Nathanson and Young have argued that African Americans and gay men in the USA and Canada often enjoy, in the feminist mind, the status of “honorary women” because of their own victimization.
In British feminism, that status would certainly apply to those of Indian and Pakistani origin given the British history of colonization and their countries’ relatively recent (1947) independence. Indeed, this status would have been directly linked to the push to allow such high levels of immigration from those countries.
However, recent feminist-driven moves to target women for aid in Third World countries has seen a change in feminist thought in this regard. To justify this behaviour, “Patriarchy” has to be given a new context. It needs to be seen as something that is inherently male-oriented. Given the chance, males will implement a version of “The Patriarchy” anywhere, anytime. That’s why it is endemic in Western society, but also dominant in Third World countries.
The problem here, of course, is that the “social construct” argument bites the dust, and Western society and perhaps even to some extent White males lose something of their demonic status. Hence feminism’s overall reluctance to deal with the issue.
The other problem directly related with these alleged perpetrators is something that is close to every influential feminist’s heart: funding.
These migrants are really economic refugees. They bring very little with them in their move to Britain. For the Social Justice Warrior, this means there are endless opportunities to portray these people as victims of racial discrimination.
If there are no translation services: racism. If the individuals are not educated: racism. If their qualifications are not recognized: racism. If they can’t get a job: racism. If they can’t get a house: racism. The list goes on.
Of course, the answer to this racism is virtually identical to those children suffering from child sexual exploitation. They need inquiries, reports, committees, boards, forums, new laws, and “multi-agency responses” too. To deny them these would be racist.
And all of that means funding, quite often for the same academics and bureaucrats. But, even when their fields of “expertise” don’t mix, the fact that one lot got funding is plenty of emotional blackmail for the other lot in their lobbying efforts.
So the feminists have instinctively sat on their hands on this, although some have recently been shamed into mumbling something close to nothing on the matter. They don’t want to blow too hard or the whole house of cards might fall.
Links
http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/1407/independent_inquiry_cse_in_rotherham
http://www.gmc-uk.org/sex_offences_act_2.pdf_48793788.pdf
