Failing victims, fuelling hate: challenging the harms of the ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ narrative

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, 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.

Professionals' Views on Responding to County Lines‐Related Criminal Exploitation in the West Midlands, UK

“…Recognising broader systemic issues underpinning criminal exploitation in county lines and reorienting towards prevention requires, however, changes in working practices, different metrics of success and adequate resourcing (Irwin‐Rogers, 2019). As with CSE (Cockbain and Tufail, 2020), other services (e.g. NGOs or grassroots initiatives) may be better‐placed to deliver various interventions than police and other statutory agencies – especially where tensions and mistrust are pronounced.…”

From Love Jihad to Grooming Gangs: Tracing Flows of the Hypersexual Muslim Male through Far-Right Female Influencers

“…In the UK, the phenomenon of child sexual exploitation gangs, commonly referred to as "grooming gangs," has become a well-known topic in national media and political discourse-noted also by Sian in this Special Issue. As described by Cockbain and Tufail (2020), the "central argument of the 'grooming gangs' narrative is, in short, that a 'disproportionate' number of Asian/Muslim/Pakistani-heritage men are involved in grooming (mostly) white British girls for organised sexual abuse. These claims are often substantiated with reference to a spate of high-profile prosecutions of so-called 'grooming gangs' in towns and cities such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Derby, Telford, Oxford, Huddersfield and Newcastle" (p. 4).…”

“…These claims are often substantiated with reference to a spate of high-profile prosecutions of so-called 'grooming gangs' in towns and cities such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Derby, Telford, Oxford, Huddersfield and Newcastle" (p. 4). Grooming gangs are not limited to sensationalism by the far-right in advancing anti-Muslim stereotypes, but can be constituted as part of a broader racialized discourse on crime that is articulated by a wide set of mainstream actors (Cockbain and Tufail 2020;Mondon and Winter 2017). This article, however, focuses specifically upon the role of far-right female influencers in perpetuating myths of grooming gangs as being integral to an Islamophobic agenda that is oriented toward Muslim male violent hypersexuality as a threat to gendered nationalist imaginaries.…”

The Right Men: How Masculinity Explains the Radical Right Gender Gap

“…Shortly before and during the time that fieldwork was conducted, several cases of child sexual exploitation surfaced in towns including Rochdale, Rotherham and Oxford 1 . These cases, which often featured white victims and Asian offenders, received prominent media attention (see Cockbain and Tufail, 2020). However, it would be too simplistic to suggest that the EDL's discourse simply mirrored public concerns.…”