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Child abuse victim speaks out about “culture of shame” in which victims, not perpetrators, are blamed (8 September 2014)

Date: 08/09/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Child abuse victim speaks out about “culture of shame” in which victims, not perpetrators, are blamed

A victim of child abuse has spoken out about how Asian girls who are sexually abused are often unable to go to the police because of family pressures.

Ruzwana Bashir from Skipton told the Daily Mail that she had been sexually abused by a neighbour from the age of 10 – and that it was only when she left home to study at Oxford University that she found the courage to tell her mother about the abuse.

However, her mother begged her not to go to the police over fears that the family might be ostracised by the British Pakistani community in their neighbourhood.

Ms Bashir did report the abuse to police and the perpetrator was eventually convicted.

However, she is now calling for better training to help social workers spot the signs of sexual abuse in children and young people – and says that sexual abuse of children is not just a problem in Rotherham, but in the whole of the UK.

Ms Bashir is also calling for mandatory reporting by officials of any suspected cases of child sexual exploitation.

Ms Bashir told the Daily Mail that the report into the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal – in which more than 1,400 children were subjected to violence and rape over a 16-year period – had not told the full story of child sexual abuse in Britain:

“Much of the coverage has focused on how men of mostly Asian descent preyed on vulnerable young white victims,” said Ms Bashir.

“The details of this abuse are awful. But what has largely been ignored is the report's finding that sexual abuse has been systemically under-reported among Asian girls, due to entrenched cultural taboos – obscuring the reality that there is a similarly rampant problem of minority girls being abused by members of their own community.”

Many of the victims in Rotherham were in care and were known to social services as victims of neglect or at risk of neglect.

However, some of the victims came from stable homes and were groomed by Asian men, whom they considered their boyfriends until they began to be passed round other men for the purpose of sexual activities.

Some of the victims who went to police said their stories were largely ignored. In one case, police claimed that a girl who had been gang raped by British Pakistani men had given her full consent to the activities.

Professor Alexis Jay’s report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham cites the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee’s finding that many of the abuse did not come to light because the victims were often alienated and ostracised from their families – and the whole community.

Another victim of the Rotherham scandal has spoken out about how police alleged she was a “known liar” when she went to report the sexual abuse she was suffering at the hands of Asian men in the area.

Ms Bashir says that she was “paralysed with shame” when the abuse started when she was 10 years old.

Skipton in Yorkshire is just 60 miles from Rotherham – many of the victims of the Rotherham child abuse scandal were trafficked by gangs of Asian men to other parts of the country to take part in sexual activities at the hands of other Asian men.

However, Ms Bashir said that, after the man who had abused her was convicted, she and another victim involved in the trial were shunned by the community – despite having taken a child sex abuser off the streets.

“This refusal to condemn perpetrators persists even after their conviction,” Ms Bashir said.

“Soon after our case, another convicted sex offender was released back into our community – and was accepted as if nothing had happened. It was clear that the same would happen with our abuser.

“Much has been made about the religion of the offenders in the Rotherham report.

“But this problem isn't about religion or race: it's about a culture where notions of shame result in the blaming of victims rather than perpetrators,” Ms Bashir added.

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