NEW YORK TIMES: …Mr. Ahmed’s* case and a handful of others prosecuted since 2010, including in Rochdale and in Keighley in the north and in Oxford in the south, followed the same template: Mostly Asian men were found to have groomed mostly white British girls between the ages of 12 and 18, getting them to use alcohol or drugs and then forcing them to have sex, either for personal gratification or for trafficking and prostitution.
In a country already fiercely debating issues of immigration and national identity, the cases have prompted anti-Muslim demonstrations by far-right groups and some soul-searching generally. Why do British-Pakistani men figure so prominently? Were they deliberately targeting white girls and staying away from their own community? Did police and local officials turn a blind eye for fear of being accused of racism, losing votes among immigrant groups or stoking the kinds of tensions that have unleashed periodic rioting in other British towns?
Nazir Afzal, a Pakistani-Briton who is the chief crown prosecutor in charge of sexual crime, said the recent cases were not primarily about race. “It’s not the ethnicity or religion of the abusers that defines them; it’s their attitude toward women,” Mr. Afzal said in a recent interview. “These men will abuse the girls and women who are the most accessible to them, regardless of their religion or the color of their skin.” … (more)
*From time to time the New York Times neglects to provide the first name of persons discussed, in this case the most prominent individual in the story.
