Kemi Badenoch’s most recent comments on the grooming gangs scandal have caused quite a stir. In an interview with GB News this week, the Conservative leader claimed that many of the men who commit group-localised child sexual exploitation (GLCSE) are “peasants” from “sub-communities”. She also called for closer investigation into cultural factors to find out why some men from particular countries engage in a “systematic pattern of behaviour” of grooming.
When looking at the perpetrators of GLCSE, a 2020 academic paper co-authored by two professors, Kish Bhatti-Sinclair and Charles Sutcliffe, concluded that “Muslims, particularly Pakistanis, dominate GLCSE prosecutions” (based on data consisting of 498 defendants in 73 prosecutions between 1997 and 2017). This corresponds with the findings of reports on industrial-scale GLCSE in English towns such as Rotherham. The 2014 Jay report on grooming gangs in the South Yorkshire market town concluded that “the majority of known perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage.” A similar finding emerged from a recent independent local inquiry focusing on the Shropshire town of Telford.
Despite being branded “shockingly offensive” by Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, Badenoch’s comments have touched on an important point. She has implicitly raised the question of whether referring to “Pakistani grooming gangs” risks overlooking important socio-cultural differences based on region of origin. While her use of the term “peasant” may be unpleasantly snobbish to some, it is one that has been used before to refer to migration to the UK from rural parts of northern Pakistan.
Back in 1987, British sociologist and race relations expert Professor Roger Ballard wrote on a particular body of migrants, namely “peasant farmers” from the Mirpur District in Azad Kashmir who had arrived in the UK over the previous three decades. Much of this migration was accelerated by the 1962-7 construction of the Mangla Dam, which submerged over 280 villages and displaced 110,000 people. At the time of writing, Ballard noted that at least 75% of British-Pakistanis could trace their origins back to an area no more than 600 square miles, lying mostly in Azad Kashmir and particularly focused on Mirpur District.
The history of Pakistani migration to the UK and the ethnicities traditionally associated with GLCSE perpetrators in Northern English towns means that any national public inquiry into grooming gangs should take a “granular” approach.
The findings of the 2020 paper on GLCSE prosecutions show that the phrasing of “Asian” and “Muslim” grooming gangs is unhelpful. Its regression analysis demonstrated that the proportion of Indian-origin people in an area had no significant effect on GLCSE prosecutions. The same result emerged for people of Bangladeshi heritage, a near-universally Muslim ethnic group in the UK. Having a relatively high proportion of Pakistani-origin residents in an area, however, had a significant effect.
But looking at cases of GLCSE involving perpetrators of Pakistani heritage through the lens of ethnicity risks overlooking migratory, educational, occupational, and religio-cultural variations. Investigating the region of origin — in Badenoch’s terms, the “sub-communities” — is crucial. To what extent are Pakistani-heritage perpetrators of GLCSE originally from relatively modern and developed cities such as Karachi in Sindh province, or Lahore in central-eastern Punjab? How many educated white-collar professionals in office-based roles are directly implicated in street-based grooming? Or is Pakistani-driven GLCSE in the UK ultimately rooted in biraderi-style Mirpuri clannishness among men who operate in segregated and low-skilled parts of the night-time economy?
As the push for a national public investigation into grooming gangs intensifies, these are the kinds of questions that should collectively act as a guiding light. It is a recognition that the portrait of modern British ethnic minorities — and modern Britain itself — is a deeply complex one.
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SubscribeAyaan Hirsi Ali
Ayan Hirsi Ali supports Kemi’s comments; here is part of her recent X post:
“The men flooding Britain and Europe as immigrants are not coming from the relatively well off urban cores of their countries. They come from rural areas where the tribal and strict religious codes of conduct apply. They also come from failed states overrun by Jihadis and controlled by guerrillas, gangs and tyrants.
Their views of women are appalling. And their views of white women are beyond disgusting.
When they get to Europe they find ghettos of like minded men where their prejudices are reinforced by relatives at home and Islamists in the mosque.”
How silly to admit such people in
So many people – from the top of government down – would rather let everyone one of our girl children suffer than admit the truth spoken not only by Hirsi Ali but many, many others. Their warnings have not only gone unheeded but have been demonised and criminalised.
“men flooding Britain and Europe as immigrants are not coming from the relatively well off urban cores of their countries. ”
That’s BS, and the intent here is clear – take the heat off the culture, “it was because they were from the villages”, nothing to do with the religion.
The point is that the majority, if not most, people in islamic countries, are from villages or ghettos in cities.
There are also people in cities in Saudi and Qatar whose views on women and Kaffirs are as despicable, and plenty of well educated urban muslims who have these views – second generation university educated who joined ISIS, knowing fully well for instance what they were doing to Yazidis girls.Or happily turned a blind eye to what was going on around their home.
On the other hand, so many Indians and Chinese, Vietnamese and Lankan immigrants here or in other parts of the West, who come from villages and poor families.
Their rates of sexual crimes are near zero, and they would be deeply ashamed if such a gang, preying on small girls, was found in their midst.
The lack of shame, contrition, empathy, not just amongst the huge numbers who joined in, but those who enabled or ignored it, is incredible, and “village folk” doesn’t excuse it.
If you come from a Vietnamese rural area it is likely to be Catholic and Buddhist – so far as I know, neither of those run courts with guidance on the acceptable way to penetrate a girl under eight years old. The fact that some of their clergy do so is neither here nor there – but rather, written into Islam is an assumption that this behaviour is not only comprehended but in some circumstances condoned, and that is in documents used by those at a high level in the faith.
Pakistani’s are simply Indians of Muslim faith correct? Sounds like this is another Muslim problem with assimilation. Once again we see that Muslim faith and teachings are incompatible with Western Liberal Democracies. Let’s call it what it is.
I think the point is that with sophisticated Pakistani urbanites this situation might never have arisen. Different groups wear their faith rather differently.
The point though is that you seem to find unsophisticated ruralites from this religion across Europe, irrespective of the country of origin.
It’s Pakistanis here because they are the biggest in UK.
In other European countries, Iraqis, Algerians, Syrians, Afghans etc are top of the table.
Do you think Indian and Chinese immigrants are all from sophisticated urban locales?
And keep in mind, I am not implying they deserve some medal for not forming rape gangs.
It’s extremely normal NOT to group up, and repeatedly gang rape large numbers of minor girls and then pass them around. Even if you have arrived here from a mud hut in the middle of nowhere.
I think it’s a good point – and this is why we need a deeper investigation.
There may be a number of factors at work, some of which may be rooted in Islam (or an interpretation of it). Attitudes to women and the way their behaviour is judged, tendency to “other” those of different religious or ethnic groups (to see them as less), shame/honour culture, tendency to see failure to protect women as a sign of weakness leading to contempt, interpretation of the dress and behaviour of white women as signalling sexual availability, feeling that morality applies only to in group members.
But these are just ideas. We need proper investigation. One thing is for sure: the idea that we all have basically the same moral sentiments and attitudes, wherever we come from, or that they are “equal but different” is untenable.
Did you read Hina Husain’s article in Unherd published 2023: Pakistani child sex abuse is an open secret.
It’s well worth reading.
She says it’s an open secret in the community.
Perhaps cousin marriages along with things like the Biridari clan system that rules supreme in those northern towns just as it did back in Pakistan doesn’t help.
Fact is all of this has been known about for decades.
Channel 4 did a great if shocking documentary in 2009 called When Cousins Marry.
The most pressing question is why, given all the deeply troubling things that were known about this particularly group were they allowed to continue living as if they were still in the hills of Pakistan?
Just read it – thank you.
I found that article 2 days ago, really hits the nail on the head.
Pakistani are a collection of different ethnicities , some gound in today’s India and some not who lived in a predominantly Muslim part of Western British India
“Islam was first introduced in India through the Arab invasion of Sind in CE 712 and through subsequent invasions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The religion firmly established itself as a force through the Mughal emperors in the sixteenth century.” There were conversions of indigenous Indians but within the Muslim population of Pakistan and India the Arabic dna and Mughal(I believe from region of Turkey) will be present. History shows that Islam,once established, doesn’t like to play second fiddle to any religion.
it’s amazing what “causes a stir” these days. It’s not that there are rape gangs running amok in England; it’s that an MP characterized them in a particular way. Would it have been better if she indicted all Pakistanis if not all Muslims?
You folks have imported a problem, just like we did with the past four years of open borders. Maybe start there – clamping down on who can wander into the country. You can’t treat the wound without first stopping the bleeding.
There are quite a few laws we need to change/introduce. If it is proved that a majority of these perpetrators come from a certain area of Pakistan stop all further immigrants from that area. Cancel all Sharia courts in the UK. Ban cousin marriages. Ban the use of the made-up word Islamophobia for them to hide behind when criticised. Ban any suggestion of a blasphemy law. Ban bigamous marriages and exclude any immigrants who wish to bring in more than 1 wife. We need to stop bending our ways and traditions to fit in with those of a 7th century man with mental issues.
Whatever else Tulip Siddiq is, she is not a peasant.
But I’m sure she runs a very nice nail bar.
I didn’t know she went in for raping young girls in Rotherham.
Having once travelled across Pakistan I saw a glaring difference between the cultural attitudes in the rural North and West and those in Lahore. There were no local women in any public places in Quetta, Peshawar, and small towns in those regions. The women in our party attracted a lot of attention, often in ways that felt threatening. In Lahore local girls wore jeans, had their hair down, and rode around on scooters. There is no single ‘Pakistan’.
Pakistan has blasphemy laws etc.
It is also legal, and distressingly common, for Hindu parents go find their minor daughter has decided to “convert” and marry some pot bellied 40-50 year muslim man.
It is also illegal, on the other hand, for a Hindu man to marry an adult muslim woman, even if she willingly agrees.
Now, here is the question.
Who do you think drove the creation of Pakistan, ensured it became an “islamic” state, encouraged the genocide of non muslims (including the inevitable mass rapes).
Who do you think made the laws that see 12 year old Hindu girls as fair game.
Was it the rural folk, or those sophisticated elites of Lahore?
With a population of some 240m people it is hardly surprising that attitudes differ across the country, same as anywhere else. What’s surprising is the way the media always refers to Muslims as if they were some kind of homogeneous blob. Many Muslims resent this.
One of the issues I think is also the influence of imans travelling from Pakistan and preaching in local mosques in this country – I suppose they’re pretty free to preach whatever they wish…… that could be problematic given that Deobandi Islam is a revivalist movement in Pakistan that emphasizes orthodox Islamism and the revival of Islamic practices. Originally it developed in India as a response to British Imperialism and the threat they felt Britain posed to their culture. It’s now the most popular school of Islamic thought among the Pashtuns and Balochs in Pakistan and not remotely enchanted by the west or western values. Can’t believe they come here because they love Britain. Many live as if they’re in Pakistan but with a better welfare system. Why do we still allow such vast numbers of immigrants from Pakistan? I’m sure there are plenty of very lovely Pakistanis but still I just don’t get it.
“What’s surprising is the way the media always refers to Muslims as if they were some kind of homogeneous blob. Many Muslims resent this.”
BUT
“Why do we still allow such vast numbers of immigrants from Pakistan? I’m sure there are plenty of very lovely Pakistanis but still I just don’t get it.”
I perceive an internal contradiction in your post… Muslims are right to resent being treated as a single group, but we shouldn’t allow in Pakistanis even though there are plenty of lovely ones.
The reality is that each ethnic and religious group is responsible to itself for how it is perceived in the outer world. If there are Pakistani Muslims who are opposed to the grooming gang behavior, they should be at the forefront of investigating and stopping it. Are they? I genuinely don’t know, but that is the only way to stop the outside world from getting the wrong impression of your community when “a few bad apples” do something wrong. The “good apples” must step up and loudly confront the bad ones.
Finally, someone mentions biraderi dynamics!
“Or is Pakistani-driven GLCSE in the UK ultimately rooted in biraderi-style Mirpuri clannishness among men who operate in segregated and low-skilled parts of the night-time economy?”
I’d add, and has the Labour Party allowed itself to be used as a vehicle to establish clannish/sectarian local power bases? Because that would explain some council failures, no?
Proper questions like this, relating to the actual facts of the offending, would assign blame only where it belongs and not broad brush painting of an entire race/religion. Which I’d have thought the people whose priority is anti-racism would want. Apparently not.
This is precisely the depth of analysis we need if we are to understand what has happened as well as condemn it. If she is right, and my understanding is that she is, these people were always going to be a poor fit in an urbanised country like the U.K.
Some years ago, a pakistani-origin man described recent immigrant from his home country as “junglies”, saying they were uneducated and ignorant. He was fairly middle class and fairly well integrated. It’s something that people rarely say outside the community, in my experience, but it’s not an uncommon view among well integrated people from the Indian subcontinent, in my experience.
But what about the reasons behind these research ‘facts’ Trying to answer ‘why’ might lead to a partial answer at least in Pakistani family culture which does indeed trace its roots back to peasant society, even while surviving in modern urban northern Britain.
At the back of what has happened, and behind the criticism of what Kemi has said, is a a more fundamental belief: that people are simply interchangeable, as if we were all just human units to be swapped in and out.
And perhaps there was always a fear that any attempt to look at “fit” in terms of immigration would be portrayed as racist.
The gangs have mostly been identified as clans of “cousin marriages” many to the second and third degree. If that is so they are obviously bringing a backward culture here, and are likely to have come from the same area of Pakistan.
Yes! Rape gangs are a complex issue and the complexity should be the overriding focus of a new enquiry. It is, of course, doubly important as it affects many more issues than the phenomenon of rape gangs. The government could do something of enormous value, and save face while at it, by instituting a time-limited inquiry into cultural norms in sub groups, how these affect intercultural relations and how we can bring sub groups together. It’s time to end multiculturalism and form a new set of values that bind us instead of dividing us.
It is, but the chances of a Labour government bringing about such a change is “net zero”.
The other question that needs asking (and it looks as if the really important questions are now beginning to emerge): why are the better-educated and slightly more integrated members of the Pakistani communities protecting these men? Surely by doing so, they have at least as much to lose in terms of reputation and blowback from the indigenous population as anyone?
Not just “a Labour government”, but ANY British government…
What evidence is there that better educated and more integrated people of Pakistani descent do protect these men?
How about the fact that no record seems to have emerged of any “civilized” Pakistanis blowing the whistle. Don’t try to tell me they don’t know exactly what is going on.
She seems to have been fairly careful with her words. Small farmers might have been better than peasants – though perhaps less accurate. But there seems to be a desire to portray her as having said something like “all Pakistanis are peasants” or “all Moslems are peasants”.
Obviously she is not saying that, and construing it in that way just takes us away from the real debate. It just makes getting at the truth all the harder and more time consuming- and less grown up!
And Bob’s your uncle!
Carla Denyer? That’s nominative determinism if ever I saw it.
Amazing. It is now racist not to lump all Asians together as one homogenous group…
Who cares where the grooming gang members come from? They all need to be imprisoned and then deported. If they aren’t citizens and you can’t convict them, just deport them.
The BBC is now using the term ‘grooming gangs’ quite a lot – especially if the people are not Asian, and come from Europe.
Take this report from 6 days ago.
‘A Romanian grooming gang has been convicted of raping and sexually abusing 10 women in flats across Dundee.
The four men and one woman also plied their victims – aged between 16 and 30 – with drugs at various properties between 2021 and 2022.’
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xj559g571o
Apparently, the BBC thinks that women of age 30 are ‘groomed’
Vulnerable women can be “groomed” with false promises, especially trafficked women. Having worked with such women, the promises, made to them are similar to those made to female children. As they are desparate, they want to believe that the “better life”, “access to clean drugs”, “a nice flat with food and clean water” makes sense to them and when told “it won’t cost you nothing”, they never see the double negative.
While the roots of the rapists might have some relevance to an anthropologist studying these gangs, I do not think that is what is important in a new national inquiry. What a ‘limited’ national inquiry needs to do is examine the failure of the state institutions involved; police, councillors, crime commissioners, politicians etc, who failed to do their duty and the reasons why. They were culpable in these rapes and should face justice.
Whilst some of the language used might be debatable the more nuanced discussion is much better than the tarring of an entire minority.
This does beg some question about naturalisation requirements too and of course schooling. Immigration isn’t going away despite the desires of some. But we don’t do enough IMO on what one has to demonstrate to gain citizenship.
Let’s also be careful about assumption Grooming only an issue with this selective community. Jeffrey Epstein was running something v similar but for a different class of customer, and of course we’ve a Royal who avoided any legal redress. And what is Tate’s business model of course but a form of abuse of young vulnerable women.
Having left school and before beginning university I worked a summer in a factory where the majority of workers were men of Pakistani origin. The majority spoke no English, kept to themselves and had a tribal governance led by a fluent English speaker. They were mostly single and made up for the lack of sex by buggering each other in the toilets. I was unaware until later that they risked death for this behaviour according to their faith. I found them neither agreeable nor disagreeable and it would appear from the recent headlines that their sexual behaviour remains primitive. This would be 55 years ago and I would guess that their is now no way to educate them out of their deviance unfortunately, having been exposed to opportunities that exist in Britain to self educate and assimilate. The present hoo ha and consequent penal solution will not matter much in the long scheme of things. This problem may persist for centuries.
Having read the article and all the comments I find myself bemused at the idea mooted by some contributors that we need a more nuanced approach to the way we describe the perpetrators so as not to ‘tar an entire minority’ with the same brush. What a load of twaddle. I may be wrong but I can’t get past the simple idea that: if many of the perpetrators of the abuse were of Pakistani heritage and, furthermore, if they were also Muslims why is it so very offensive to label them as Pakistani Muslims?
Let us for argument’s sake examine a hypothetical situation. Imagine that a group of white, Christian, British men who were part of a community that had migrated to Paskistan organised themselves into gangs and then set about ‘grooming’ a number of underage Pakistani girls and then proceeded to rape and otherwise abuse them repeatedly over a lengthy period of time. Does anyone for one moment imagine that the Pakistani authorities would, in some instances, ‘turn the other way’ for fear of offending the migrant community or be nuanced about the language used to describe the perpetrators? Or that when reporting the crimes their media and commentariat would shy away from describing the offenders as white British men choosing instead, after researching the local origins of the perpetratrors to, perhaps, describe them as white working class men from a humble background in the Midlands of England?
Furthermore, were such a thing to take place I, as a British man and like all right-thinking people, would be ashamed of the behaviour of the men and would want them to be punished to the full extent of the law and then, irrespective of whether or not the perpetrators were deported back to the UK, I would hope that they would be ostracised and vilified by all and sundry and not welcomed back into their communities.
Let’s stop with all the politically correct nonsense about precisely where the men originated and concentrate, instead, on the victims of the abuse and the institutional failures which, in some cases, facilitated the continuing abuse over many years.
In areas like Rochdale and Oldham, English families don’t call them peasants but another 4-letter word beginning with ‘p’. They despise them and have to experience the realities on the ground of cousin marriage, religious misgogyny and widespread child and wife abuse then extended to teenage English children in their neighbourhoods.
And for the wider region the above can explain the 2-year lockdown too in order to protect these large multigenerational families cooped up in a single house.
It doesn’t matter who or what are these rapist perpetrators of a national atrocity. We don’t want them in the UK. Period. Deport them without further delay!
They have definitely Sindh, these people.
These Greens can’t help themselves, can they? Being called “peasants” is grossly offensive is it? Well, I’m sure most of us with a bit of Anglo Saxon blood in our veins can call these predators far worse.
Very good. These were peasant farmers: smallholders, so not poor, landless peasants. They were sponsored by their kinship network (biradari) to fly or come by ship, as passengers, to Britain in a classic chain migration. The only point I’d differ on is the Mangla Dam population displacement. It may have provided a push factor for migration but the voucher scheme for workers provided by the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 was a major pull factor. Mirpuris were apparently more effective in their use of their biradaris than other groups, such as the Chhachhi Pashtuns or those from the Jhelum valley. This ensured that their kinsmen, already employed in the UK, dominated the uptake of employment vouchers, which enabled their access to Britain. Hence the current dominance of Mirpuris in Britain today.