The predominantly Muslim child rape grooming gangs likely trafficked “countless” British women and girls to their native Pakistan to serve as sex slaves, the head of the independent rape gang inquiry has said.
MP Rupert Lowe, who launched an independent inquiry into the mass child rape that occurred throughout England at the hands of clans of mostly Pakistani Muslim men, has called on the government to launch an investigation into cases of missing girls in grooming areas to determine whether they may have been trafficked to Pakistan as sex slaves.
The inquiry, which began in London last week, heard testimony from rape gang survivors that their abusers had attempted to take them to Pakistan. One victim told the inquiry: “They said they wanted to take me back to meet their families. So luckily I didn’t have a passport, otherwise I might not be sat here right now.”
Lowe said that multiple witness statements have stated that sexually abused girls were being trafficked to Pakistan and elsewhere by their rapists.
“I believe there are currently countless British women being used as sex slaves overseas. This may sound insane. It is not. Look at these gangs. Nobody would have believed the extent of the evil before it was uncovered. This is very real,” the Greater Yarmouth MP said.
“Our inquiry believes that this is the current reality for a terrifying number of women,” Lowe added.
The claims fall in line with previous disclosures detailing the modus operandi of grooming gangs, which have been frequently accused of trafficking girls to other cities in England to be abused by other members of their vast networks.
One victim told the Lowe inquiry: “There’s a very big network. It’s in Derby, Birmingham, there’s Sheffield, there’s Newcastle, there’s Leeds, there’s Barnsley. So you’d get taken to, say, Burton, and then he’d take you to a house, and then they’d send men in, like a conveyor belt.”
Victims appearing before the inquiry have also testified to the racial and religious element to the sexual abuse, in which mostly Pakistani Muslim men preyed specifically on white working-class girls, as they were seen as lesser than their Muslim counterparts.
One survivor, who said that she was victimised by “mainly Pakistani” men, told the panel: “They used to, like, tell me things about the good angel and the bad angel that I’ve been, like, kind of possessed. And they’ve got to punish me to get the badness out of me.
“That’s why they have to rape me and do all this stuff to me, to get the badness out of me. I’ve got to be punished. Yeah. And it was just all kind of stuff like that. The words they say to you, you’re ‘gora, like white trash and white skin.”
Another recounted an instance in which she was taken to the “party house” during the Islamic holiday of Eid, and one of her abusers said that his “relatives were coming from Birmingham to celebrate Eid and they were expecting girls to be waiting here for them.”
The victims, some of whom said that they were abused by hundreds of men, also stressed that the abuse extended far beyond rape, with some telling the inquiry of being drugged, beaten, and having guns put to their heads.
“I’ve had a knife at my throat because he wanted me to ‘sort out’ 10, 15 cars full of men. I’d get kidnapped. I don’t think people realise, I think they think it’s rape, but it was torture as well. I’d be kidnapped and I’d be locked in a room. And I’d be beaten. I’d be told if I don’t do this, I’m not going to go home. So it was a lot more than just rape,” one said.
Local authorities, notably the police and NHS, were also accused in the victim testimonies of being either complicit or at least serving to cover up the crimes committed by the rape gangs. Previous reports have long found that police, social workers, and other local authorities frequently overlooked the atrocities committed by grooming gangs for fear of appearing racist or stoking racial tensions.
One survivor told the Rape Gang Inquiry: “The police didn’t do anything last time. I told them that it was essentially forced. And they smirked at me in my own home and left. So, I mean… there was no evidence that they were going to do anything different, that they were going to actually support us.”
Another said that healthcare workers at the National Health Service failed to take any action after she came in with sexually transmitted diseases at the age of 13 and later with a miscarriage.
Commenting on the alleged complicity, Rupert Lowe said: “I want to see senior police officers in prison. With the evidence we are collecting, there is simply no way hundreds of men and women right at the top of their forces were not aware of the rapes. Hundreds, if not more. Politicians, police, council officials, NHS, social care – all of them.
“If they knew and did nothing, they shouldn’t just be sacked, they should be prosecuted. A lot of people need to go to prison.”
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