At least a thousand girls were abused in the city of Rotherham in the United Kingdom between 1980-2009, according to an official report recently revealed and published by the British Telegraph newspaper. An independent investigation found that the local authorities and the police deliberately ignored the serious affair for years, out of fear of “repercussions on community relations” in the city.
According to the 2014 J Committee report, the victims, some of whom were as young as 11, were subjected to severe abuse, including threats of violence and acts of gang rape. In many cases, the girls were threatened that they would be harmed if they told about the abuse.
Louise Casey’s 2015 report on Rotherham Council revealed that senior council and police officials preferred to keep the affair quiet. “If you want to keep your job, you keep your mouth shut,” one witness was quoted as saying by the British “Telegraph”. Yes, in a report published in 2019 on the city of Manchester, it was found that the local police were instructed to ignore the gangs and look for suspects from the background others. In 2020, the British Ministry of the Interior refused to publish the findings of its investigation on the subject, claiming that it was “not in the public interest”.
Children’s rights organizations in the United Kingdom are now calling for a comprehensive government investigation to be launched to ensure that similar cases do not happen again, and to strengthen the protection systems for children at risk – as the British “Telegraph” noted.