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Worldnews

The UKs Grooming Gang Scandal Is About Race, Class And Misogyny

The victims were considered disposable – not only by the perpetrators but also by those who were supposed to help them.

 “My daughter is being gang raped and sold to countless men.” These were the words, spoken by a heartbroken mother, that first alerted me to the organised rape and pimping gangs – now commonly referred to as “grooming gangs” – targeting young girls in the north of England. It was the late 1990s and, knowing that I was a campaigner against child sexual exploitation, some of the mothers of these girls had reached out to me. They were desperate for help. I wasn’t the first person they’d approached. They had tried the authorities – the police and child protection services – but instead of help, they’d found only judgement, about their parenting and their daughters. One police officer described a victim as a “troublesome slag”. The gang that had abused her was later convicted of horrific child rapes. I marvelled at the strength of these mothers even as I saw, up close, the pain in their eyes. I couldn’t help but get emotional when one told me about how her 13-year-old daughter had come home crying, with blood all over her legs, high on cannabis and alcohol. She had been anally gang raped. Social workers had told some of the families that their daughters were “choosing” this “lifestyle” and there was nothing they could do about it. To these adults who were tasked with protecting these children, child rape and prostitution was a “lifestyle choice”. I felt horrified and blindly furious. “We didn’t know,” the mothers kept telling me. “We did nothing wrong!” They came from a broad range of backgrounds, mainly working class. Some of them had happy, stable family setups, and others were more chaotic, where their daughters had been taken into local authority care homes. Some of the girls had already been victims of sexual abuse – by boys in their neighbourhood or male family members. Some of them were being bullied at school. Some were autistic. But all of them shared something in common – neither the police nor child protection professionals had stepped in to help them. The most vulnerable were those in care homes. Workers at these homes would turn a blind eye to the men in flash cars waiting outside for them. When the girls would disappear for days on end, the police would barely look for them. It was obvious, once I spoke to the mothers and some of the girls who had managed to escape the gangs, that this was not an unknown phenomenon – health workers, neighbours and teachers were aware of what was happening. It wasn’t a secret that girls had begun to replace heroin as the preferred merchandise for criminals looking to make a fast buck. I had previously investigated widespread sexual abuse by clergy and online child abuse rings. Now I wanted to investigate what these mothers were telling me. One evening, I was sat outside a care home in Blackpool, in the north of England, hoping to ask a member of staff what they were doing to protect the girls in their care, when I noticed what looked like a brand-new car pulling up around the corner. It was driven by a man in his 40s. There were two younger men sitting on the back seat. One of the younger men got out of the car, went to the door of the care home and rang the doorbell. He spoke briefly to the member of staff who answered. Five minutes later, a girl who couldn’t have been older than 14 ran out and clambered into the back of the car. They drove off. I was all too familiar with the machinations of child sexual abuse and exploitation, but there were some key differences between the cases I’d investigated previously and the way these gangs operated. These gangs made their victims believe that they were their saviours. Younger men would be used to draw the victims in. Initially, they’d provide friendship, fast food and fun. Because most of the victims were white and most of the perpetrators were of Pakistani descent, the girls would be told that it was best they didn’t tell their parents, as they were “bound to be racist”. Once the girls were sucked in, they would be passed on to other men, who would sell them from flats. Early reports from parents and victims confirmed that some of the older men in the network were taxi drivers. It soon became clear how the girls were targeted: Taxi drivers would pick them up – often from care homes. I saw taxis pull up outside these homes and girls get in as staff watched from the windows. The taxi drivers would get a fee for each girl delivered to the gang members – mainly men in their 20s and 30s – although that fee often involved being permitted to rape the victim free of charge. Some of these gangs were highly organised – young runners would be tasked with making initial contact with the victims; landlords would rent out their flats for the girls to be raped in; others were more opportunistic. All of them benefitted from the culture of impunity that continues to surround the sexual abuse of women and girls – a culture where conviction rates are so low as to render rape virtually decriminalised. Most media reports approach complex stories like this as being about race or class or sex – never all three at once. But the truth is that these children were abused because they were girls. They were denied any pretence of protection from the authorities because they were poor. They were targeted because of their race and then ignored by authorities that simultaneously feared being accused of racism while adopting racist assumptions about the sorts of white girls who would “sleep with” brown men. This is about race and class and sex. And misogyny runs through all three. These girls were either blamed or not believed. In fact, sometimes they would be prosecuted for being drunk and disorderly while the men who supplied the alcohol – the same men who raped them – were not. These girls were not merely “duped” as the word “grooming” suggests, although they were certainly tricked into believing that they had a boyfriend in one of the younger procurers; they were raped, sold, abused, in some cases tortured. Now, almost three decades after I first spoke to those mothers, nothing has changed. There is still an appalling complacency about organised sexual exploitation, which results in few convictions – regardless of the ethnicity of the perpetrators. The police still are not doing enough. We are still choosing to blame the victims. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Worldnews

Mapping How Israels Land Grabs Are Reshaping The Occupied West Bank

Israel’s continuing military assault in Jenin and Tulkarem seeks to suppress resistance and tighten control amid a demographic crisis. While global attention remains fixed on Israel’s war on Gaza, Israel is rapidly redrawing the map of the occupied West Bank. On January 21, just two days after a ceasefire took effect in Gaza, the Israeli military intensified its assault across the occupied West Bank, particularly in the northern regions. Israeli bulldozers have razed entire residential areas, forcibly expelling at least 40,000 people from their homes. For the first time since the second Intifada, Israeli forces have reintroduced tank incursions and air attacks into the West Bank, part of a systematic Israeli strategy to change the geography of the West Bank, paving the way for full annexation. This report, produced by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency, SANAD, draws on United Nations data, satellite imagery, and maps to reveal how this is happening. The West Bank, called al-Daffah in Arabic, is west of the Jordan River, from which it gets its name. Together with occupied East Jerusalem, it covers an area of 5,655sq km (2,183sq miles), making it about 15 times larger than Gaza or roughly the same size as the US state of Delaware. Since 1967, Israel has militarily occupied the West Bank, subjecting Palestinians to checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, home demolitions, land seizures, settlement expansion and frequent raids, severely restricting every aspect of their lives. The West Bank is home to approximately 3.3 million Palestinians. It is divided into 11 governorates, with Hebron, or al-Khalil in Arabic, being the most populous at about 842,000 residents. Jerusalem follows with 500,000, Nablus with 440,000, Ramallah and el-Bireh with 377,000 and Jenin with 360,000. About 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements on Palestinian land. Deadly attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have persisted for years. Since systematic documentation began in 2008, UN data shows that at least 1,896 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers. By October 6, 2023 – just hours before the Al-Aqsa Flood operation – the death toll for 2023 had already risen to 198, surpassing 2022’s total of 154 and making it the deadliest year on record at the time. Since October 7, 2023, the number of attacks has skyrocketed. Over the past 17 months, more than 900 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank. More than half of them were from Jenin and Tulkarem. Amnesty International described this violence as “brutal”, citing unlawful killings, the disproportionate use of deadly force, and the deliberate denial of medical care to the wounded – all unfolding as global attention remains fixated on Gaza. Israel’s continuing military incursion, which it calls “Operation Iron Wall”, has primarily targeted the northern governorates of Jenin and Tulkarem. These governorates have fewer Israeli settlements than the rest of the West Bank and have long been centres of Palestinian resistance, a factor that has historically hindered their annexation. In response, Israel has carried out systematic raids and large-scale demolitions in these regions, aiming to suppress resistance and establish full control – part of a broader strategy to tighten its hold on the entire West Bank. The refugee camps in particular have been heavily targeted. Since October 2023, the Tulkarem refugee camp, the second-largest in the West Bank, witnessed the destruction of 205 structures, including homes, commercial buildings, and agricultural infrastructure, followed by 174 structures in Nur Shams camp and 144 in Jenin camp. The peak in Jenin occurred in August 2024, when 37 structures were demolished in a single month. According to Peace Now, an Israeli nongovernmental organisation (NGO), in 2024 a record-breaking 48 new settlement outposts were established in the West Bank. Even before the war, settlement expansion was accelerating. In 2023, 31 new outposts were set up, with 21 appearing in just six months between February and July – well before October 7. Settler attacks have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, especially in rural areas near settlement outposts. Settlers have blocked roads to Palestinian communities, hindering access to essential services and livelihoods. In some instances, they have destroyed water sources, cutting off vital resources for Palestinian herding communities.   Testimonies from the southern West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta describe homes and water sources being destroyed, forcing residents to flee. In Nablus, eight families (51 people) were forcibly displaced at gunpoint. A report by the Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din, which analysed 1,664 police investigations into settler violence against Palestinians between 2005 and September 2023, found that: The study highlighted a deep mistrust of Israeli law enforcement among Palestinians, with 58 percent of Palestinian victims in 2023 choosing not to report crimes to the police. B’Tselem, another Israeli human rights group, has described settler violence as “Israel’s unofficial tool” for expelling Palestinians, with the lack of accountability contributing to a culture of impunity. A June 2024 report by HaMoked, an Israeli human rights organisation, showed that Israel has rapidly intensified its control over the West Bank since October 2023, moving towards full annexation. This effort is led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who was recently given a newly created minister position in the Ministry of Defence, granting him extensive powers over civilian affairs in the West Bank. Smotrich, a settler who lives on Palestinian land outside the illegal settlement of Kedumin, also heads the Settlement Administration, a division within the Israeli Ministry of Defense, responsible for overseeing the establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements. In 2024, 24,700 dunams (6,100 acres or 2,470 hectares) were classified as “state land” by Israeli authorities, surpassing the 23,000 dunams annexed between 2000 and 2023. Additionally, 68 illegal settlement outposts were recognised by Israel and provided with infrastructure, deepening Israeli control. Smotrich’s transfer of planning and demolition powers has accelerated the forced displacement of Palestinians. His administration works with settlers to seize land, demolish Palestinian homes, and recognise illegal outposts, further entrenching settlement control. An analysis of satellite images from March 12 over Tulkarem and Jenin reveals widespread destruction and bulldozing by the Israeli military: Since October 7, 2023, the bulldozing of at least 523 buildings, which housed numerous families, has forced nearly 3,000 people from their homes, including: According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), displacement has doubled in recent months, with the latest military operation triggering the largest wave of Palestinian displacement in the West Bank since 1967, with more than 40,000 people being forced to flee their homes. These figures point to a strategy of dismantling Palestinian communities, as their presence in the West Bank poses a demographic challenge to Israel. New images and reports highlight the scale of devastation in Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams – entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, thousands forced to flee and the fabric of Palestinian society under systematic assault. A unique pattern was identified in Jenin, which was not observed in Tulkarem and its camp. The Israeli military has constructed 14 earthen barriers surrounding the camp, with military vehicles positioned near some of these barriers. In addition, since October 2023, the Israeli military has imposed severe movement restrictions on Palestinians, with 793 checkpoints by November 2024, 60 percent of which are in Hebron, Nablus, and Ramallah – hindering medical access, disrupting trade and isolating communities. Despite rapid settlement expansion, Israel faces a key demographic challenge, as the birthrate among the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel remains higher than among Israelis living in Israel and the occupied West Bank, although population numbers are roughly equal now. To counter this, Israeli policy increasingly focuses on reducing the Palestinian presence in strategically sensitive areas, framing displacement as both a security necessity and a “humanitarian” solution. This strategy is evident in statements by Israeli officials. In March 2025, Defense Minister Israel Yoav Katz defended illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank as “essential for protecting Israeli cities”, while media figures like Gideon Dokov called the forced removal of Palestinians from all of Palestine “the only humanitarian solution”, labelling Palestinians as “a murderous nation”. The “Fighting for Life” campaign echoed this message with the slogan “No Future in Palestine”, encouraging what they euphemistically called “voluntary emigration”. Meanwhile, Meir Masri, professor of geopolitics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said on social media platform X that the annexation of the West Bank is “the greatest Zionist achievement since 1967”, calling it a historic opportunity that must not be missed. In contrast, a policy paper for 2025–2026, published by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) warned that unilateral annexation would deepen Israel’s global isolation, push it towards a one-state reality where Jews risk becoming a minority, and contradict core Zionist ideology. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Seyi Tinubus Bestie, Lege Miami, Appreciates God For The Completion Of His Mansion In Lagos

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Futbol

Ousmane Dembele scored again as Paris St-Germain beat Marseille to edge closer to wrapping up a 13th Ligue 1 title. Following his crucial midweek goal at Liverpool in the Champions League, in-form Dembele set hosts PSG on their way in Le Classique with a composed 17th-minute finish after Fabian Ruiz's pass. The France international has scored seven goals in his latest seven appearances, with his latest effort taking his season's tally to 30 in all competitions. Ruiz grabbed his second assist of the night shortly before half-time when midfielder Nuno Mendes stroked in from close range. Amine Gouiri scored his fourth goal since joining Marseille in January to offer hope of a comeback early in the second half; however, a Pol Lirola own goal put PSG back in control. The Paris giants have yet to lose in the league this season, winning 21 games and drawing five, and they have won 11 of 13 played at the Parc des Princes. Victory extends PSG's lead over second-placed Marseille to 19 points and means they could wrap up the title with six games to spare on 5 April if they win their next two fixtures against Saint-Etienne and Angers. PSG have won the Ligue 1 title in each of the past three seasons and remain on track for a treble with a place in the Coupe de France semi-finals secured, while they face Aston Villa in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.