We must have reckoning on rape gangs – 4 steps UK must take toward real justice | UK | News
Labour’s new strategy to “protect women and girls” was launched with fanfare this week. A new focus on respect. New socialist rape units in every police force. New lessons at school. But the truth is there is nothing new in any of this. We already had RASSO (rape and serious crime) units in our police forces. We already had VAWG strategies. We already had laws. What we didn’t have, and still don’t have, is the political will to do whatever it takes to keep us safe.
Because if this government were serious about protecting women and girls, it would start with something that has never been done: demand that Pakistan take back the men who gang-raped British girls. But what if it doesn’t happen? He would stop issuing visas until they did so. But the abuse never stopped and the state still doesn’t.
take the case Nurse Jade. Her story, published this week, is a catalog of failure: She was raped by hundreds of men over the age of 14. The “newbies” flown in from Pakistan to rape them.
A system of targeted gang rape that operated in the open and probably still operates. This wasn’t just maintenance. This was sexual exploitation tourism taking place right under the nose of the British state.
What visas were these men coming with? Visitor visa? Spouse visa? Have they ever been vetted? Have they ever been removed? How many children were raped in a safe house and lost in the system? How many are left?
We issue hundreds of Pakistan visitor visas every day; more than 200,000 of these were issued last year alone; this number is more than double the figure given just two years ago; There are virtually no meaningful checks on criminal history, local warrants, or connections to rape gang networks.
How many of them are here for their families? How many for work? So how many people like the men Jade describes are here to rape?
If we had one serious safeguarding department in Whitehall these questions would have been answered long ago. But it’s not because no one dared to ask.
These are men who are not afraid to operate openly because they know that no one in power will dare to name them.
Social workers called her a prostitute. The police arrested him for wasting time. One of the harassers appeared in a police uniform. Another is still preying on young girls in the same town centre. By the way, he’s the one who ended up on the sex offender registry.
How many more Jades are there? We now know that what happened in Rochdale, Rotherham, was no exception. It was a pattern.
Networks of Pakistani men were allowed to operate openly in towns and cities across England for over a decade. They just weren’t ignored. This was enabled by the police, social services and politicians who were afraid of losing their seats or people who were afraid of being called racists rather than complicit in the rape of children.
These were not isolated incidents. They were organised, racialized and targeted with harassment. The vast majority of the victims were white girls. The perpetrators knew this. They called them “white bitches” and “goris”. They told the victims that the police would not take action and that if they did, they would say the victim was a racist. They were right for years.
The UK must recognize that visa policy is border policy and protection starts at the border. If Labor or the Conservatives want to talk about protecting women and girls, they can start here: How many of Jade’s abusers were foreign nationals? How many came from Pakistan? So how many people were deported?
If Pakistan refuses to take back sex offenders, Britain will need to impose an immediate visa ban. This is what real protection looks like. You cannot protect women by allowing the risk to grow. You stop it. You lift it. Or you lose the right to say you care. Protection means prevention.
ECHR will not save you. There will be execution.
Currently, a convicted sex offender can fight deportation under Article 8’s “right to family life.” They have rights. His victims don’t do this. British girls are being targeted as Labor clings to the ECHR.
Boundaries are important. Application is important. And nothing in Labour’s plan solves this problem.
You can’t solve this with school assemblies. Labor wants to teach boys to respect girls. But boys don’t learn respect from worksheets. They learn this from the tolerance of the state. And what the state has tolerated for decades is the gang rape and torture of British girls; the state releases criminals and keeps the door open for more.
We don’t need any more strategies. We need results. That’s enough announcement. “Awareness” is enough. We do not lack plans or commitments. We are lacking action. The only way to fix this is to do what no government, not even the Conservatives, has done; who finds every chance and looks away:
• Admit the truth about who is responsible
• Remove all criminals who have no right to be here
• Cutting the visa line from countries where rape is exported, such as Pakistan.
• And stop pretending this is about demonizing a group of people. Not so. This is about justice.
Because justice for Jade and other girls like her will never be achieved with a new strategy. This can only happen through reckoning.
