Government statistics on grooming gangs in the UK, the Complex and Organised Child Abuse Dataset published in 2023, which identified around 700 recorded offences of group-based child sexual exploitation, “is highly unlikely to reflect the true scale of the issue,” according to a review by Baroness Casey, the BBC reported early this year.
A new study by Melbourne-based theologian and Islam expert, Mark Durie, UK grooming gangs and Islam identifies eight aspects of religion as influencing the abuse. Durie is a Senior Research Fellow of the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at the Melbourne School of Theology
“We are far from grasping the full extent of grooming gang criminality in the UK,” Durie writes. “It is reasonable to assume that since sexual abuse of all kinds tends to be under-reported, this is also true of grooming gangs. The Independent has reported that almost 19,000 children were identified as sexual exploitation victims in England in one year alone, so since this has been going on for decades, it seems that victims must number in at least several tens of thousands; but this could well be just the tip of a much larger iceberg.”
He cites the Casey review as establishing that the criminal justice system ignored race as a factor. Casey wrote, “many examples of organisations avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community cohesion problems”
On religion, Durie writes, “Here I shall put the case that the religion of Islam needs to be taken into account as a possible contributing factor to the UK grooming gang phenomenon.
“The word ‘possible’ is used advisedly here. As we shall see, there is strong prima facie evidence that Islam has contributed to these crimes. There is, for example, the striking over-representation of men with Muslim names in grooming gang convictions. However, there has been a systemic avoidance of collecting data on the religious identities of grooming gang members and their victims.”
In addition to victims’ accounts of the religious motivations of their abusers, Durie cites a study of their names. “While many seem to take pains to avoid using the R word, the published Arabic names of perpetrators point to its relevance. There has been a series of high-profile prosecutions of grooming gangs, mainly made up of [British] Pakistani men, including in Aylesbury, Bradford, Burton, Derbyshire, Halifax, Huddersfield, Keighley, Newcastle, Oldham, Oxfordshire, Peterborough, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford. Where the names of Pakistani perpetrators have been published, they all have Muslim names. Peter McLoughlin, who compiled a list of grooming gang convictions from 1997 to 2018, found that 87% of those convicted had Muslim names.
“Most of the convicted grooming gangs have been entirely composed of Muslim men of Pakistani background, but in a few cases, there were one or two non-Muslim gang members from other backgrounds. For example, the Aylesbury and Huddersfield gangs each included a Sikh man, the Peterborough gang included a few Eastern Europeans, and a white man or woman with an English name has been convicted in connection with what were otherwise [British] Pakistani gangs active in Bradford, Rotherham, Halifax and Derbyshire.”
One striking survivor account comes from Dr Ella Hill, whose family moved her across the country to escape, after the police proved ineffective.
“Ella Hill reported that her rape was racially and religiously aggravated: she was raped because of her race and her religion. Her rapists told her, while she was being raped, that this was happening because she was white and because she was a Christian.
“She described how she was trafficked to a group of Muslims by a [British] Pakistani Muslim boyfriend. She would be taken to houses and flats to be raped, beaten and tortured. She tried to move and hide, but her perpetrator found her, broke into her house and attempted to kill her: she reported that her “boyfriend” tried to kill her five times. She survived with multiple lacerations and bruises. She approached the police at least five times with medical evidence, but she reported that they said, ‘There is nothing we can do’ and refused to take evidence.
“Ella Hill explained that the abuse was racially aggravated. While she was being beaten, she would be called ‘a white slag, a white whore, a white c..t’, over and over again. At the same time, she was also being verbally abused for being a non-Muslim. Her abusers told her she deserved to be punished because of both her race and her religion. In accordance with what she called ‘Grooming Gang Ideology’, her abusers believed that ‘the crimes they carry out are justified by their religious beliefs.'”
Hill’s view on Muslims was recorded in a submission to an inquiry: “I think it’s important to acknowledge that not all Muslims share these beliefs, or support the practices of grooming gang criminals. However, I
do believe that many of these attitudes
and beliefs are endemic in some Muslim populations in areas of the UK and beyond. And I believe that allowing these beliefs
to be taught to young Muslims is allowing a form of religious abuse of Muslims themselves, who will almost certainly have unhealthy relationships as a result of it.“
Durie cites eight factors in religion influencing abuse:
1. The doctrine of the superiority of Muslims over non-Muslims.
2. The doctrine of loyalty and disavowal, also known as ‘love and hate for the sake of God’.
3. The superiority and dominance of men over women.
4. The mandated seclusion of women by men.
5. The religious practice of forced marriage, and the lack of a concept of an age
of consent.
6. The perceived threat of dangerous female sexuality.
7. The practice of sex slavery as an aspect of the laws of jihad.
8. Dhimmitude and the treatment of conquered non-Muslim peoples in Islamic law.
Among his recommendations for change:
• Fears of stoking Islamophobia should not be allowed to skuttle transparent investigation of the grooming gangs’ religious cultures.
• The religious identities of both perpetrators and victims should be rigorously recorded.
•…Police should be trained to interview grooming gang suspects concerning their religious beliefs