[DAWN] LAST month a damning report came out that showed 1,400 vulnerable children in Rotherham, UK, had been systematically sexually abused by gangs of men, mostly of Pak origin, between 1997 and 2013. It's easy to pass this off as a crime that doesn't concern us because it took place on British soil. Yet it gives us a vital opportunity to examine our attitudes towards child abuse in our own country, so that we can better work to protect children here and anywhere else where Paks live in the world. After similar scandals in Oxford and Rochdale, as well as the Jimmy Saville case, the Rotherham scandal has stirred up huge controversy in the United Kingdom. Not only had abuse of the worst kind taken place, but the police and the Rotherham Council ignored the victims' pleas for help, thus victimising them further.
Self-styled community leaders who claim to represent all the Pak Moslems living in Rotherham encouraged police and council high-ups to ignore the abuse, in order to preserve the superficial 'honour' of the community. The officials went along with this to preserve their jobs. The result: children doubly failed by the system, by their elders and by their authority figures, and left to the mercy of men who drove up in taxis, plied these children, some as young as 11, and mostly white, with drugs, and assaulted them. They threatened to burn them alive if they told anyone what happened to them.