The reluctance of authorities to tackle child sexual abuse is not limited to the most recent horrors emerging from the north of England with mainly “Pakistani men” preying on young girls, many in social care. Fear of embarrassing Muslim sensitivities with concern about the political impact may have been part of the problem. But it is all too sadly a common occurrence across the field, no matter who the perpetrators are.
Priest abuse was ignored forever until groups of adults abused as children got together, starting in the 1990s, and filed lawsuits in the face of an unrepentant RC church. To date $5 to $6 billion has been paid out by churches in the USA over the past two decades. Private school teacher abuse has been outed again because groups of adults came together and the multiple allegations were less easy to rubbish through weight of numbers.
Child sexual abuse in general started to be exposed in the 1980s as Pluto moved into Scorpio. Ellen Bass’s 1988 Courage to Heal which offered self-help to abuse survivors ran into a savage backlash as the ‘false memory’ (denial) movement went on the counter attack. Because of the toxic debate which followed, a considerable quantity of therapy research was initiated which eventually buried the notion of ‘false memory’ as a get-out-of-jail free excuse. Ellen Bass, 16 June 1947, is a Sun Uranus in Gemini with a determined Saturn Pluto in Leo with a Taurus Mars and Moon; and Jupiter in Scorpio.
In England the Cleveland Child Abuse Inquiry 1987/88 led by Lady Butler Sloss produced a botched report suggesting that the doctors had got their diagnosis of abuse wrong. This misconception is still widely held today despite Beatrix Campbell’s heroic research efforts which provided evidence from The National Archives that the government in 1988 had been advised that “at least 80%” of the diagnoses of sexual abuse were, in fact, correct – and Margaret Thatcher knew that. Bea Campbell, 3 February 1947, is a redoubtable Sun Mars in Aquarius opposition Saturn Pluto in Leo with Jupiter in Scorpio.
Pluto exited Scorpio in 1995 as the Rose West trial in the UK was sickening the country with tales of serial killing and torture of young girls and women. The Solar Eclipse which oversaw her conviction fittingly was a New Moon in Scorpio with a brutal Mars Pluto conjunction.
The latest UK Child Abuse Inquiry instigated in 2015 went through three chairman in short order at the start, one of them being Butler-Sloss, which indicates a carelessness beyond the norm even for politics. Eventually Alexis Jay was pulled in because of her prior work in the Rotherham, Yorkshire abuse cases. She came out with a report in 2022 which has been largely ignored. She said that mandatory reporting was her “most important” recommendation and the UK was now “an outlier” in terms of international best practice, but a “watered-down” version proposed by the last Conservative government had been scrapped when the general election was called.
Alexis Jay, 25 April 1949, a Sun Taurus in a determined square to Pluto in Leo, Mars in go-ahead Aries in a tough-minded trine to Saturn in Leo and a Jupiter in early Aquarius.
Interesting that Ellen Bass, Bea Campbell have Jupiter in Scorpio and come out of the stubborn late 1940s generation..
The North Wales child abuse scandal was the subject of a three-year, £13 million investigation into the physical and sexual abuse of children in care homes. The 2000 report by retired High Court judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, resulted in changes in policy and to the settling of 140 compensation claims on behalf of victims of child abuse. When it reported, Waterhouse was interviewed on BBC TV Newsnight and Jeremy Paxman to his shame led with the question of whether some had ‘invented’ their stories to claim compensation.
What puzzled me through the 1990s as I was knee deep in the ‘false memory’ wars was the oddity of how quickly buried the knowledge of child sexual abuse incidents was in the public mind. Lies, smears, distortions of the truth were more palatable and easier to believe. I watched one multiple abuse scandal emerge in real time during which abusive adults got decades in prison and by the end of it there was still a general/media belief that nothing had happened. As one child therapist put it – the event just got ‘sealed over’ as if it had never existed.
Not an astrological thought – but there is a hint in psychiatrist Dori Laub’s words “The fight against the obliteration of the story could only be won at the cost of the obliteration of the audience.” So terrible we can’t bear to look at it – until dragged kicking and screaming by the threat of massive, expensive lawsuits.
Maybe Pluto in Aquarius will start to make headway into righting a few social ills.
This is a ramble and not too astrological but the present north of England rape gang horror sees an unhealthy coming together of political cowardice over Asian perpetrators added on top of the standard see-no-evil approach to child sexual abuse. Prison sentences are sometimes handed out but the public turns away its gaze and the authorities are never brought to pay the price for their dereliction of responsibility.
In terms of the Muslim sensitivities I am always reminded of Joan Bakewell’s words at the time of the Ayatollah’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie – “it is the problem for a basically tolerant society when it takes in intolerant elements. It doesn’t know what to do with them.” I reckon that is where the rot started. My hope for Pluto in Aquarius is that it is fiercely intolerant of intolerance.
Additional random thoughts.
Belgium held a huge White March on 20 March 1996 to demand better protection for children and a better functioning justice system after the Marcel Dutroux affair, when a serial killer and torturer of young girls with associations to politicians was exposed. Has much changed since? All countries have a convulsive moment which then sinks back into torpor.
Good piece in today’s Times by Matthew Syed who allies hyperliberalism with fascist right wingers – “two equal and opposite forces that are feeding off each other.”
He says about the gang rapes we should bin euphemisms. This was — ethnic violence of a shocking and sustained kind: predominantly Pakistani men targeting predominantly white girls. Children were drugged, trafficked, gang-raped and tortured, a scandal that shakes one to the core.”
“And all this took place in plain sight, in no small part because of the capture of our institutions by the virus of ultra-progressivism, the fear that to investigate these crimes might “undermine community cohesion” or — worst of all — appear racist.”
“Isn’t this what we saw with the trans issue, when a tiny group of activists “won” support by threatening anyone who disagreed with cancellation, leading to a backlash that ensured Trump’s most potent campaign slogan was not about the economy or anything else that once represented the bread and butter of politics. Instead, it was: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you. That’s right: a man who pathologically denies the result of the 2020 election, a serial lawbreaker who flutters his eyelashes at the QAnon conspiracy, was given wings by trans extremists and their (one hopes temporary) capture of American institutions.”
Thoughts to ponder.
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/nc05syed-plvfdcxnz
Add ON: After a great deal of soul searching at the end of a gruelling five years in the 1990s to find out why child abuse is such an intractable problem to tackle I eventually concluded:
That the perpetrators and their close perverse supporters (whether personally involved or incapable of believing their friend/relative was this monster) as a problem could probably be cracked.
What was not possible to shift was the great congealed mass of ‘nice’ people (neither abusers nor abused) who did not want to know and often hostilely did not want to know since it disturbed their idealized view of the world. Their need to hang onto a delusional sanitized world view was the overwhelming obstacle to progress.
Every so often an atrocity so horrific breaks through which they have to face but – as soon as possible it seals over and they delete it from mind. And life goes on as before.
It may be a faint hope but Martin Luther King’s thought – “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” has a mite of truth about it. CSA can be talked about nowadays which it couldn’t be prior to the 1980s. And progress tends to go in pendulum swings from one extreme to the opposite but out of the process incremental change of a positive nature usually results over the long term.
Institutional cover ups – from the Vatican, to school boards, care home management, to police and the judiciary – are a whole other problem. And are either complicit in the abuse or share the mainstream distaste for being forced to open their eyes to an unsavoury truth.
Add On: Nick Timothy (with whom I do not always agree politically ) has a trenchant piece in the Telegraph.
“The rape gangs are a massive social and state failure.”
“The machinery of the state failed in their most elementary duties – driven by its core ideologies of ultra-liberalism and multiculturalism – not only looked the other way. In some cases it was an active participant in the racially aggravated mass rape of children.” “We still do not know, for example, the truth about allegations of police collusion, social workers facilitating abuse, and senior councillors cutting deals outside the criminal justice system.”
“We are witnessing not the strength of an arrogant state, but the weakness and fear of an ideological dynasty that sees its empire collapsing and lacks the power to stop it. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/06/grooming-gangs-scandal-is-shattering-the-woke-worldview/
Add ON: Compiled from police forces in England and Wales. Foreign national males living in Britain commit sex crimes at a far higher rate (3.5 times more likely) than do British men.
The number of rapes soared from about 15,000 a year a decade ago towards its current level of almost 70,000 a year. “That coincided with a sharp increase in immigration by young men from countries and cultures that have not experienced women’s emancipation.”
Data coming from Germany, Denmark and Sweden point towards the same thing too: foreign males are over-represented in their rape statistics and those from countries with a backwards record on women’s rights were hugely so.
“The recent enormous “Boriswave” of immigrants was skewed heavily towards people from culturally non-aligned countries of origin. In other words, we can expect to see British women pay a heavy price for Johnson’s recklessness in the years to come.”
See previous post: Europe – embroiled in a clash of cultures 3 December 2023.
What a tangled web it all is. And how, as Marjorie observes, people often prefer things to go on as before, while shielding themselves from horrible reality.
This current scandal reminded me of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, and how the campaigning journalist, W T Stead (5th July 1849) pushed for it to pass in Parliament by presenting a series of shocking, sensationalised investigations into London’s flourishing sex trade in very young girls. The CLA Act aimed to raise the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16, as well as redefining the laws around homosexuality. There had been some resistance to the Bill, and it wasn’t at all certain that it would pass.
Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, published the first article “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” on July 6th, 1885. There are descriptions of what we now call ‘grooming’ – taking young working class girls out to the theatre, gifts, flattery, promises of marriage etc. Girls were often drugged with laudanum, plus alcohol, and subsequently threatened in order to make them compliant after their ‘virginity’ had been sold for a high price. Some were reported to be totally unconscious when they were raped – echoes of the Gisele Pelicot case there.
It is all disturbingly familiar territory.
There’s much of astro interest, here’s just a bit of it:
I noticed that 1885 had Pluto moving into the early degrees of Gemini, and Uranus into Libra. Double air again, as we approach Uranus in Gemini with Pluto in Aquarius. Perhaps this encourages fresh ways of thinking and communicating? Pluto in Gemini saw a massive expansion in the press of the day, with advances in printing and the ability to distribute papers and magazines far and wide via the railways. All quite Gemini – as is the subject of young people too. Uranus in Libra back then was approaching the Uranus Return for the UK, 1801 – I think Hugh pointed out how sensitive that Uranus is for the UK as a whole?
Neptune was at 24 Taurus that Victorian summer, with tr Uranus nudging it now. Since Venus rules Taurus, women and girls could have been in focus then. Neptune, following Pluto in transiting the UK’s 8th house of sex, money, and ‘karma’ had been squaring legislative Saturn in Leo in the UK’s 1801 chart too. Now we see Uranus following that same path. The title of Stead’s first article refers to the notion of a ‘maiden tribute’ being sacrificed to the mythical Minotaur in his labyrinth. Neptune in bull-headed Taurus seems symbolic here. There’s a famous painting by Watts of the Minotaur, inspired by Stead’s title, and the campaigns against child prostitution.
Curiously, the Solar Eclipse of March 1885 was 26 Pisces, reflecting the Lunar Eclipse of last September – and in the sign of sacrifice. The Lunar Eclipse of March 1885 was 10 Libra, reflecting the potent Solar Eclipse at 10 Libra last October in the Venus-ruled sign of Libra, a sign also associated with the scales of justice and the law.
W.T. Stead himself had a dynamic, campaigning Uranus in Aries, aligned with Pluto in Aries. He was a famous spiritualist too, and would die on that doomed voyage on the ‘Titanic’. His natal Neptune was in Pisces.
As ever, history can inform us, Jane. I remember listening to a bbc radio play on Stead and his campaign to lower the age of consent, a pretty harrowing listen which has never left me. I didn’t know about the link to Watt’s Minotaur, thank you. On the subject, Picasso was likewise obsessed with the mythical beast and the rape of the maiden and had a 10th house Saturn 9, Neptune 15, Jupiter 23, Pluto 28 of Taurus stellium with his 4th house Scorpio Sun 2 opposite Saturn. For Picasso the bull symbolised potency and mythic power. In the 1930s, he unashamedly produced a series of paintings and sketches depicting the mintotaur raping women. Picasso himself identifies with the Minotaur and these artworks reflect his own behaviour with women. There’s something about the nature of Neptune in Taurus that redflects the myth of the voracious minotaur who fed on the bodies of youths and maidens, not to mention the far from benign Poseidon who in myth rapes Medusa and gets clean away with it because he is powerful, enabled and a god, while Medusa as the victim is punished.
I’m so dumb.
*raise the age of consent.
Abuse is generally about power and control so it makes sense that patriarchal cultures feature heavily in the abuse of children.
That may well be.
How does this woman’s motivation factor in, I wonder?
A trial in Burnley, Lancashire concluded in April 2013, with a Muslim man named Mohammed Imran Amjad being jailed for the sexual abuse of a child. However, months later a Muslim woman receptionist who worked for council was ‘jailed’ for attempting to derail the trial of him and other men for grooming. Five ‘other men in that trial were cleared of rape; sexual assault and child abduction at Burnley Crown Court in April 2013.’ She accessed a confidential database 60 times over 15 days to find details of the witness and her family. Lancashire Council recently published a report which stated that ‘many of the perpetrators come from within the Asian community’.
Lancashire News, 30 August 2013,
PC, I’ll reply to you up here for the sake of the formatting. I have been a bit short of time and want to make the position clear. I completely agree that victims of abuse have been historically disbelieved, dismissed, and gaslighted and amplifying their stories is absolutely vital for justice. However, I think it’s equally important to scrutinise who is amplifying these stories, how they’re doing it, and why.
I completely agree, it’s undeniable that failures to address abuse – sometimes due to fears of causing cultural divisions or accusations of insensitivity – have contributed to mistrust and anger. Personally, I also think there has also been a lot of classism at play which should be more acknowledged. This has, sadly, made it easier for bad actors to manipulate the narrative. Legitimate failures by authorities to act decisively in some of these cases of grooming gangs have been used as a springboard for figures like Robinson to portray themselves as champions of justice, when in reality, their aim is often to stoke fear and promote far-right ideology.
This kind of emotional priming – playing on genuine outrage or grief – has been a powerful tool for extremists to radicalise others. It starts with something real and horrifying, like the abuse of victims, and then twists the narrative to serve unrelated ideological ends. It’s crucial to expose and tackle abuse without allowing it to be weaponised in this way.
So, I think it’s possible to be utterly disgusted by abuse and still question the motives of those particular individuals amplifying these stories. In fact, I’d argue it’s necessary if we’re to stop these issues being hijacked and exploited. We need to be aware of Pluto in Aquarius resulting in division and extremism from the ugly truth surfacing, and who that benefits – doing so does not take anything away from the truth of what happened.
I take it you are referring to Tommy Robinson.
Part of the problem though is that the establishment perennially fails to safeguard vulnerable children. One of the chief perpetrators is still walking around the town where the abuse took place, victims see their tormentors and it sends them back to the unspeakable trauma they went through. This individual should have been deported but he’s still at large. That makes victims feel even more unseen, that they’re not believed, that they are worth nothing.
The fact that more extreme parties can make meal of these terrible crimes is due to the appalling failure of our politicians to protect the most vulnerable in society. It should be a dire warning to the mainstream parties to take action – but they don’t and nothing changes. These gangs haven’t gone away, they’re still operating in our towns and cities, children are still being abused by them.
Tara, thank you for your response. I see your reasoning.
Again I respectfully disagree.
The legacy media is currently desperately working hard to manage a change in narrative to focus on the likes of Musk and his intent.
Rather than speculation on the intent (of the likes of Robinson and Musk), shouldn’t the primary focus be the actual systemic race based pedophile serial rapists? It turns out that a significant number of “groomers” are often related and multigenerational.
This has been ongoing since the early seventies, at least. The poor girl I mentioned in the Rotherham article was paid off in shillings.
Child safeguarding, law enforcement, elected officials and media have all been shown to be complicit to varying degrees.
This has continually been overlooked due the witches brew of: the profound horror of it, class, race relations, indifference as well as a score of other reasons. It appears that we’ve barely scratched the surface of this living nightmare.
“My British grandmother, Cora Amelia Robinson, was an important part of my childhood. She was very strict, but also kind and I could always count on her.
She grew up very poor in England during the Great Depression only to be bombed in WW2. To earn money for food, she cleaned houses, leaving me with a lasting respect for those who do so.
My Nana was one of the poor working-class girls with no one to protect her who might have been abducted in present day Britain.”
Elon Musk”
Read Jane’s history lesson above to enlighten yourself that Musk’s grandmother could have experienced abduction before ‘race based paedophile serial rapists’ came to ‘ present day Britain’ . Fact.
Thank you for the contribution Jennifer E, although I don’t see relevance to Musk’s quote or my preceding exchanges with tara, despite having read Jane’s fascinating piece.
At the moment, I see that many are dedicated to speculating about Musk and Robinson or otherwise trying to change the focus of the bare facts. I’m quite sure these dreadful revelations have been a rude awakening for many and we are all scrabbling to understand.
With that in mind, I see this focus on Musk as a blatant attempt to derail a national reckoning in the UK.
Without Musk there would be no global attention.
Robinson has been loud and clear about this extensive abuse for over a decade.
Without their voices we would not be discussing this here and now.
The victims and the whistleblowers would still have been shouting in the wilderness, as the have been for over forty years now. Time after time, having being noticed then derailed by whattabouttery, shooting the messenger, DARVO or a host of other tactics.
Something just felt very wrong to me a few post back when someone go to the UK to study college then suspected of arranging a marriage to get a visa and ended up as a cab driver who abused his own daughter to death. I really dont feel like the recent side news is motivated by vigilantism.
re your add on Marjorie
I have wondered just as you have
and came to the basic conclusion. These things are just too awful for people to fully digest, so, they look away. I have encountered it directly
in my own family. Some how it is impossible for us to deal. Further more the systems that are there to protect
and support, do not, protect and support young children. In some countries they are expected to arrive in court and make statements and answer questions as if they were adults. The real truth is people say they care, but a lot of people can only do this in the abstract. It’s fine to point fingers from afar. But when I talked to my friends about sexual abuse in my family, they were uncomfortable and frankly I felt as if I was confessing to being an abuser myself. The shame and guilt that washed over me regardless of how
there was nothing I could’ve done to
protect my nieces. The situation is unresolved and haunts me
Pluto entering a sign usually turns over stones to reveal the unpleasant things associated with it. On entering materialistic Capricorn it uncovered the rot in the banking system and western finance very much things associated with the sig. Now it has moved to the group sign of Aquarius it is perhaps showing that the constant extolling the virtues of the “community” and the “greater good of society” by politicians and governments can lead to some pretty horrible things being covered up. Pluto is going to look right through all those platitudes and challenge those concepts to the point of destruction and rebuilding.
Hugh, Thanks, As ever your comment was insightful and worth pondering. It sparked off a thought that perhaps in addition to Pluto into Aquarius the rape gangs exposure is might be connected to the UK’s 8th house Mars being under assault from Solar Arc Uranus – detonating sludge up from the bottom of the sewers. There will be other possible financial/economic effects but the 8th house is the chart area of sexuality and hidden secrets.
This is a particular challenge to Labour which is supposed to be party of the downtrodden masses, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the voiceless and the dispossessed.
I would add that Aquarius with its 11th House associations also covers democracy and particularly institutions such as Parliaments and legislative assemblies reflect society at large. In the case of the UK is it acceptable for a parties with a third of the popular to control over two thirds of the seats in the House of Commons. At what point does that arrangement cease to have any democratic legitimacy. In addition if such a government proves to be dysfunctional, incompetent or corrupt how is it to be held to account or censured when there is no effective opposition. This is particularly an issue when a Prime Minister with such a majority can prevent any action being taken on certain issues for up to 5 years no matter what the public clamour for change. Pluto in Aquarius is going to ruthlessly expose the failings of British democracy with the danger that it might undermine it totally. The country needs more checks on the potential for elective dictatorships whether it be proportional representation at elections or something akin to the US mid term election cycles which forces the legislatures to face the electorate every two years.
So is it that Pluto in Aquarius will uncover/ expose the dark side that exists within communities (not just Muslim) that operate within the wider society. Didn’t really think of that before but it seems plausible.
I had noticed that a LOT of “dark sides” being exposed to light in the last couple of years in particular, as if somehow all the old excuses for why things haven’t changed have stopped working and it’s all coming out whatever now. Bad ‘uns being revealed all over the shop in all areas. And I know we’ve had phases of this before (Savile, MeToo etc) that all sort of flare up and then get almost forgotten about, but whatever energy this is feels unstoppable now, that it’s really starting to expose the institutional rot side of things more. And that there are fewer places for wrongdoers to hide.
With regard to Rotherham, as per usual, most commentators are dodging around the truth. If you import huge numbers of people from an alien culture with very different customs and codes of behaviour it is difficult for any society to handle. It becomes impossible when the imports are told that they need not adjust their lives in way and that it is not their duty to honour or respect the host culture. Rather the indigenous population are told that it is THEY who must adapt their ways, multiculturalism being the buzz word. Christmas must become a HOLIDAY in case it offends those who worship other religions. And, most importantly of all – and something that has been instrumental in child abuse – the newcomers learn quickly that the authorities are so scared of (what, I’m never really sure), that justice ill not be meted out to those who transgress. And every effort will be made to squash those Brits still brave enough to speak out. Thus, they learn they can do pretty much what they like with impunity.
What puzzles me is what are the authorities thinking will happen if this goes on – or are they simply so focused on winning votes that they simply don’t care. Surely it is far more respectful to immigrant communities to treat them as full citizens, to make it clear that if they are too remain here, they must absorb the host culture. I cannot believe that every Pakistani or Middle Eastern immigrant believes that child abuse is right, yet we treat them as if they are simply too stupid/evil to accept that there are laws here and that we have standards of behaviour. Why these communities don’t cry out ‘not in our name,’ is puzzling, but dont we owe it to our newcomers to afford them the full protection and force of the law? To otherwise enrages the host community and leads nowhere.
See previous post Europe – embroiled in a clash of cultures 3rd December 2023. With a to-do list for immigrants from a Germany newspaper.
This isn’t related to Topic but one can draw the end…when in India in 2014 extreme right wing ,rather a cult took over the reins, many just refused to talk about politics especially the working younger generation of millenials and gen z responding with,”we are not interested in politics.” To “we have a life”, “we are too busy making money and name.”. Today as I read reports daily of suicides to mass family murders by same generation, I feel justice happening as this is same generation which turned to rioting for few rupees when jobs evaporated-which is always in any cult regime as nobody would invest in inflammatory land.
So, the thought train about, as Marjorie rightly said since I also used to get such replies,” we are cultured to have such issues.” eventually lose voice when find out that it has happened to their child.
Indian movie “Highway” starring Alia bhatt has depicted this scenario movingly.
Tragically, little innocents pay for their elders blindfolds.
“When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or cease to be honest.” -Anonymous.
The truth is that csa is so endemic in all societies that we don’t know how to even begin to deal with it. It does not discriminate when it comes to culture or class. It’s embedded into our institutions and creeps into our popular culture. Not so long ago, the wealthy sent their children to boarding schools rife with a bullying culture, no vetting proceedures and questionable practices and punishments. At my brother’s boarding school, boys were punished by being forced to remove all their clothes and then hosed with ice cold water by a master. This is an ugly truth, but for most girls of 9, 10 amd 11, that is where it begins, that is when we start to be objectified and sexualised by adults, as we notice how some men behave inappropriately around us, men even older than our fathers start to catcall and leer and make intrusive comments about our appearance. I wish I knew the answer, I wish I understood why it is that we are the only species of animal that preys on its own young.
I can’t cope with denial over this issue, it infuriates me because one of our deepest instincts as human beings is to protect our children from predators. I agree with the tone of Matthew Syed’s article. Some people behave irrationally when their ideology or delusive belief system is threatened by truth, shutting down the teller and accusing truth seekers of malicious intent.
Nietzsche wrote: “Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”.
There seems to be plenty of DARVO about right now, that’s for sure.
Deny, attack, and reverse victim & offender.
Much equivocating too.
All topped with a very healthy dose of attempting to shoot the messengers (thinking of Musk and Robinson particularly).
With more and more court transcriptions coming to light, it’s likely going to get worse before it gets better.
I think it’s worth reflecting on whether the scrutiny they face is due to their “message” or their motives
Respectfully disagree Tara.
At times like this, shooting the messenger is a standard tactic to either diminish, obfuscate or otherwise discount abuse.
There’s been at least fifty years of questioning the motive of victims or whistleblowers.
It might be time to question that as well.
Sadly some politicians appear to be prepared to ignore historical cases of child abuse if it looks like it is going to cost them votes in certain constituencies. It is this kind of cynicism that is so disturbing since it reveals the true nature of so many people in politics and government. These are people who have lost their moral compass utterly.
Everyone of us knows the answer, every parent does.
We are too busy in making our careers to providing that we forget that kids need above all, time with them which as parents we try to fulfill out of guilt by toys to keeping them busy and out of sight by sending them to boarding schools to relatives elders homes during vacations
That wastes same money we all r guilty of chasing at cost of our kids time.
They don’t need any adult who needs them out of sight from parents. Playing with other kids in open and within parents sight is all a kid asks for.
Like the animals keep an eye on their younger ones…
It is still the case that the majority of CSA in the UK occurs within families or where perpetrators are closely involved with the child/family. Also, there are more white gangs abusing children than Asian gangs. Not that it’s a grim competition.
Actually, what’s being suggested right now is that may not be the case if you look closely . In absolute numbers, it is possible that in a country with a majority of white peoples, the majority of crimes are committed by white people, simply by counting, but if you look at ratios by ethnicity, the picture changes dramatically. There’s also a suggestion that many statistics that claim that are based on the wrong numbers, as this specific abuse was brushed under the carpet so much and not appearing in any official documents because it was not even acknowledged.
The progressive automatic answer for many years about this issue has been: “white men commit more abuse” or “ race/religion/nationality is not relevant” an abuser is an abuser. But these crimes require the silence of communities around them and they target specific victims, so saying that is not just wrong? It’s criminally short sighted
It does happen across demographics with the vast majority (99%), obviously. committed by males, with women/girls (over 80%) the victims. I think, though, as far as ethnicity (or more accurately, belief system/culture), the stats Marjorie is highlighting are telling – of course you’ll get more white gangs in a predominantly white country. But when you dig down, what this appears to be saying is that, and highly uncomfortably for many of us who would like to believe otherwise (me included), there really is a disproportionate problem here among the immigrant population. I’d suggest this is less of a race problem than a belief or culture problem – it shouldn’t be surprising that highly traditional, patriarchal religious belief systems (eg Islam, eg fundamentalist Christianity, whether Protestant or Catholic, or any secular belief system which operates the same way) which treats women and girls as second class citizens, male property or predominantly existing to fulfil a sexual & reproductive role which is generally enforced etc is going to see disproportionate levels of sexual assault also. You see similar in closed religious/cult like communities, regardless of the ethnicity.
Labour rely on the demographic largely responsible for the recent mass abuse by organised gangs. During the many trials, not only was there substantial evidence of sexual abuse but torture too.
Marjorie, similar moves to inquire into and provide redress to victims of abuse have occurred recently in Hew Zealand culminating in a public apology delivered by the Prime Minister to Parliament on 12 November 2024
The Abuse in Care – Royal Commission of Inquiry reported to the Governor-General in June 2024 and its findings were made public on 24 July 2024 when its final report – Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light (external link) was presented to Parliament.
The Royal Commission investigated what happened to children, young people and vulnerable adults while in the care of the State or faith-based institutions, mainly between 1950 and 1999.
It heard nearly 3,000 survivor accounts of abuse and neglect and its findings and recommendations are the result of five years of investigations, research, private sessions, and public hearings.
The Crown response to the Royal Commission
The Prime Minister delivered a public apology in Parliament on behalf of the Crown to survivors of abuse in care on 12 November 2024.
High profile court cases and mass jailing have been done with media and community coverage. It strikes me that the theatre of these trials is the aim. Shock and Awe plus public holding accountable will change behaviour of individuals and communities. On one hand people of different cultural experience come from immigration plus social change from UK Seaside Humour and Barbara Windsor “ooer missus” become criminalised in a couple of decades. Mainstream became obscene. It is difficult for people to adapt so quickly. There is also commentary against figures like Esther Rantzen for causing a generational impass where even relatives and elders feel afraid to cuddle or tickle their child for fear of being labelled an abuser. Young generation seem complexed by being touched even and seem mentally ill and many are big people very heavy for their age? Gabor Mate’s book ‘Hold Onto Your Kids’ looks at this Childline inter-generational gap. He looks at peer parented youth and distant non-touch adults. He views them as psychopathic and narcissistic. Mate sees a high rate in f mental illness and teenage suicide ahead from disturbed intergenerational links and children who do not like to be touched or treat like children. Many people look at Saint Esther and wonder if her agendas have harmed a generation?
Esther Rantzen’s Childline has saved the lives of countless abuse survivors who otherwise had nowhere to turn.
There have been rumours that Childline has been used to attract the young and vulnerable for vile purposes. Though I can’t possibly know if it is true. More worrying is the role of security services in the relentless abuse, especially in children’s homes, allegedly. And that data comes from former police detectives.
And this forever for fame woke generation uses these as excuses to get release of hardened criminals like the brothers in America who killed their parents then enjoyed the riches while fooling police by fake robberies to divert attention…
At times , all on camera becomes excessive which worthless take advantage of while none …but problem is in the end…politicians and big wigs who allowed all this go scott free….so planets and time changes but “law is a net in which big fish doesn’t get caught as it tears it apart and only small fish get caught” stays time tested.
Esther Rantzen shone a powerful and necessary light on csa. I was a young adult by the time of her campaigns but I was able to start the painful process of connecting with what I went through unheard as a young child as a result. I’m not convinced by some of your points. We have to keep fighting the abuse and not be afraid to call it out.
Jane – very sorry to learn about what you’ve gone through in your life. I agree we have to keep fighting, and indeed acknowledging the dark and difficult truth.
I’m not sure which ‘Jane’ you are – there’s been some confusion here in the past. What’s the best way of distinguishing between us? A surname letter identifier? Something else? What do you think?
The insidious nature of this type of abuse sickens me. Having been a victim myself its evident across my chart (heavy 8th house and 12th house placements, pluto and jupiter in scoprio, mars-opposition-pluto, 12 house north node scorpio) i have had astro readings from astrologers who gave me *no* hint to it – which in retrospect is understandable if the client doesn’t disclose it but still frustrating. There is even a willingness with some astrologers to give a sunshine and roses approach to natal readings.
It was when pluto entered aquarius (my 3rd house) that my dissociative amnesia lifted and i was confronted with the abuse i suffered.
On another note, the mind is an amazing organ. It’s ability to ‘forget’ i.e protect you from traumatic memories is a way to keep you alive with such violent betrayal. However the body and subconscious remembers and it will manifest day-to-day negatively (drugs, alchohol, dissociation, overeating, mental health problems) until it is confronted in the conscious. This confrontation comes at such a cost. Once you figure out how these maladaptive ways of coping work, you see it everywhere with many people and many structures.
My hope is that more victims are heard and these abusers face justice. We must have an unflinching confrontation about the abuse children – they are the most marginalised group of people.
The 2015 Best Oscar went to Spotlight which is a film about how journalists uncover the sexual abuse by the RC Church in Boston. A new Editor comes to the newspaper and pushes the team to investigate this issue. Within the city, almost everybody in power is complicit in allowing the abusing priests to get away with their crimes. It takes an out of towner to break the circle of power. Highly recommend it as a film to watch and partly this is because there is no abuse shown – the focus is about the connections of power and how those with it, try to maintain it.
Agree, @gnarlydude. Excellent cast and very good depiction of the coverups and attempts by those in power to dissuade the investigators.
Marjorie’s quote of Laub seems to sum things up.
With the horror of it all, people have been looking the other way for generations.
One Rotherham newspaper article that I’d seen, entitled; Girl (15) ‘very well used sexually’ went on to detail that the girl was later paid off in shillings.
Despicable stuff. It has festered for over 50 years.
If only it was decisively dealt with at the time.
The catalyst for the recent global notoriety: Two of the perps are being retried and for obscure legal reasons meant the court transcripts of those cases (sentencing) have come out publicly, unlike most others, which were always blocked.
People are now raising money to have more court transcripts released. Apparently they are prohibitively expensive.
Once more of these heinous acts are explicitly detailed, I doubt very much they’ll calm the waters.
God help the UK is this isn’t swiftly acted upon for once.
A ‘million woman march’ is planned in London on Feb 17 to protest all aspects of this endlessly repulsive creepshow not least of which the involvement of those who sought to kick this into the long grass. There is no doubt that there is an insidious movement against girls and women growing quietly in the weeds more overtly in some places than others but all following the same trajectory, camouflaged by the parading of a succession of women destined/shown to fail (kamala, kemi etc etc) and some punctiations (Pelicot)as a sign of so many ‘broken’ ceilings and ‘wow aren’t women doing well’. Do not make me laugh… It is going to be a (VERY) rough awakening.
Anna – agreed re tbe “insidious movement against girls and women”. It is shocking to me as a well travelled “elder” how the situation has regressed – all part of the power grab by political entities. Time for ALL to call tbis OUT and demonstrate OUR POWER and teach our young people the same
Yes. While rewatching Handmaid’s Tale from the very beginning before season 6 starts, it struck me how astute Margaret Atwood had been and how she rang such an early alarm bell. While we of a certain generation waited for the dinosaurs to retire or die, we now stand and watch a plethora of factions undermine women and girls in what can only be called a campaign of emotional violence backed by organized and orchestrated guerilla skirmishes. The very same power grabbers are using others for cover to the same ends. It was uncomfortable to come to this realization.
Really sorry to disagree with you but being of same age and observing same….i have lost hope in young generation of girls after overhearing them fantasising to the point of demanding “fifty shades of grey” kind of bdsm which becomes violence in less civilised (and 3rd world poor countries where feudalism exists and men find violence to subjugated women as already there are many battles going on for that 1 piec of bread ).. as if that’s pure love…i have given up
There is no giving up.
Insidious is right. Imagine an organization called HOPE not hate:
Nick Lowles Runs Hope Not Hate, a self proclaimed anti fascist organisation that published a smear campaign on the mother of Charlene Downes, a girl that was raped and then killed by a Muslim grooming gang, Downes’ body is believed to have been dismembered and sold as meat by a kebab shop run by her accused murderers.
Employed Matthew Collins to write hit-pieces on anyone that raised alarm about the issue, Lowles also euphemised them as “so called grooming gangs” effectively denying that they even existed
yes…guerilla warfare personified. at least it is coming out even as the msm want to scream about ‘snow’ , strictly, or any other inanity going.
Lest not forget the children who were sent to Australia from children homes in this country, during the period from 1946-1972(?). Some had parents. The Orange children Or something similar. How could our Governments do this? Sent from Britain to Churches , farms and families etc in Australia. Across the world in their own. One as young. 4 years old. I spent two summer holidays in children’s homes in 1959’s, due to my mother being seriously ill and my father working, along with bringing up my older siblings. All my aunt had young children themselves and lived further away. Those homes were not the nicest of places, one a Nunnery, another just a children’s home. I always think how lucky I was. My parents kept a close eye on me. They had no alternative, choice for holiday arrangement those years. Apparently children in Germany had a similar thing happen to them. I can’t remember where they sent them, yet there was an article about it last year. Time and time again authorities seem to just ignore the unpalatable. One thing coming more and more to the service, is the way we treat minors.
Another darker truth is that Pakistan has a culture of using young boys as sex objects who dance using their hips in center of crowd of adult men…it’s called “bachcha baazi” it’s also prevalent in Afghanistan
Pakistanis repeatedly call out to end this but the region with Afghanistan is always subjugated by reliigous leaders so nothing happens.
Usually, when media prints “girls” it gets more eyeballs as sensitivities towards girl child globally but even in convents to boarding schools , priests have been known to abuse young boys too.
Nobody speaks for boys as they are supposed to be tough and raised that way but toughening means calling out, not staying silent
In 2025, as we end a quarter of a century, let’s treat all as children instead of more sensitivities for girl child just because it sells more
It isn’t because it “sells more”. It’s because it literally happens more to girls. Over 80% of victims are female, that’s why, and I wouldn’t agree at all that everyone notices it or cares about that either. They certainly didn’t in the case Marjorie is talking about. Because abuse of women and girls is so ubiquitous and there are lots of narratives around “well, it was his right”, “she asked for it/deserved” (as was the narrative here – about underprivileged teenage girls). But yes, as you rightly say, boys also get get abused, as we know from many of the priest, children’s home and sports coach cases (which were reported in the press in many places, in fact) and likewise must not be forgotten. All victims matter.
I’d say the focus should be on those in power who continue to cover up, turn a blind eye and enable abuses whoever the victims are. Because the same failings are repeating over and over. Every time, there’s a big crisis and everyone says “lessons must be learned”. The same lessons and they never seem to be. It’s an institutional rot.
Absolutely… what is it that keeps getting kicked into the grass. Accountability of those in positions of accountability. From Epstein on it isn’t enough to point out the perpetrators, who are the enablers and the drivers.
Dargah *
It’s outrageous that a free and democratic country like the UK has fallen for the Muslim victimhood narrative and allowed children to be used and exploited by Muslims shamelessly this has happened in India throughout history and we have become aware of Muslim agenda and modus operandi through terrible experiences. Please watch Ajmer files how the Muslims of Ajmer Radha’s so called pious people exploit and ruined lives of young Hindu Gorls. It was only because of people like Tarek Farah and Tommy Robinson that some attention was directed towards these heinous and disgusting crimes. All people are not the same and all religions aren’t either.
I think perhaps look at the way the British authorities treat minors per se in Britain. Both our main political parties actively allowed young children to be sent to Australia from 1946-1972. That is 28 years! Astonishing. Treatment has not been that good from Victorian times until now. Nothing has really changed. There was one comment on one paper’s feedback today, which stated the staff were told never to ask or pry by their council employers? So young girls could be in a terrible state and no-one asked? If this is true, then it is harrowing , some obviously knew what was going on. Apparently some of these girls were move around to other homes in the country. I know Mother whose child worked with rehabilitation for some of these girls. It is difficult to take in how they were abused and equate it with your own, so called, modern sophisticated country. We need an enquiry for those who have been abused. We owe it to them. If it is always swept under the radar, then it allowed to persist in one form or another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajmer_rape_case
This same sort of thing has been perpetrated by Christians, especially extreme sects of evangelicals, in the US, as well as in the well-documented cases involving the Roman Catholic Church, many other churches and the Boy Scouts. Please don’t blame any one religion for this type of unspeakable behavior. It happens in both religious and secular settings where there’s an imbalance of power, especially against girls/women and children of all ages, regardless of sex. Powerful people engage in or cover up these vile practices because they can and there’s little effective oversight.
In Catholic schools one religion was to be blamed, exclusively.
In Bradford one religion was to be blamed, exclusively
All religions can be evil, men of all races do this, it happens everywhere.. that’s what the people who tolerate it say. Enough
This is the responsibility of Pakistani Muslims, end of
BMc: In Catholic schools one religion was to be blamed, exclusively.
Wrong.
In America abuse has been uncovered in the Mormon church as well as the Southern Baptist.
I think it was so bad because not only did Catholics move the abusers to other churches/parishes which created more victims but some of the perpetrators were shuttled to the Vatican to shield them from being charged criminally.
Around the middle of last year a prominent minister of a mega church is Dallas, Texas was exposed as having molested a preteen almost 40 years ago when he and his wife lived with the victim’s family during the early days of his being a minister.
He eventually had to step down along with officials from his church.
I know this isn’t a one-to-one comparison but in America law enforcement is usually reluctant to get involved in these situations and the civil courts are usually the only avenue for justice for the victims.
I agree in the sense that it is prevalent in ANY patriarchal fundamentalist religion (including Christianity, and in cults, which operate the same way). But the key with this is you can’t make excuses and handwave it away if a particular fundamentalist set of values is being practiced by people who happen to have brown skin. And this is about the enabling and excuses being made precisely on that basis. Few, certainly in the UK have any qualms about calling out, say, the Catholic OR Anglican churches – we’ve been doing it for years, rightly so. But it’s the qualms that appear to be the exact problem in cases like Rotherham because it clashes with the desired narrative. If victims are to be centred, there must be a bottom line; that no matter who the perp and how politically inconvenient it may be they must not be enabled, and they must not be excused in any way, regardless of their ethnicity, demographic, status/position, religion, or belief system. Nobody gets to be a sacred caste. We also need to be allowed to be clear and accurate about who is doing what to whom, in what situations and the context it’s been working in (eg seeing working class girls in care as not really children, easy pickings and value-less) in order to be able to tackle it effectively.
@Laura, I find it weird that men of color were able to abuse these girls.
Were they trafficked by white men?
Just curious.
Who, the girls? No, both victims and perps in this story were all from the same areas many in Yorkshire, and most of the men would have grown up there also, second gen at least. So they weren’t trafficked in this case – they were local girls.
I’d say it’s just as much about who the GIRLS are and that nobody (in power) caring one bit about their demographic: working class white teenage girls, commonly looked down as “chavs” in a lot of UK culture, and a great many of them were in local authority care. Categorised by the adults who should have been protecting them as “choosing a lifestyle” when essentially they were just vulnerable, victimised kids. The how it was “allowed” to happen in this case appeared to be authorities who could’ve done something not wanting to stir up racial tension which was claimed would be the result if it looked like the demographic of the perps looked like a pattern.
I think it’s key remember too that perps of all demographics actively look for victims where there are “gaps”, for whatever reason, and especially when they know nobody will be looking out for them. So here, you have that apparent unwillingness to act because of fears of fuelling racial tension, but you also have the fact that at least some of the perps were in positions of power locally – at least one was a member of the council. (As has happened before with white British politicians including in Rochdale – see the late Liberal politician Cyril Smith, for instance, who abused boys for years and was enabled by the Liberal leadership of the time).