Jane McCallion: On yesterday’s Newsnight, former Home Secretary Jack Straw was brought on to discuss the recent case in Derby where two men, Mohammed Liaqat, 28, and Abid Saddique, 27, have been convicted and jailed for sexually assaulting teenage girls and grooming them for the prostitution. During the course of the interview, Mr Straw commented that “there is a specific problem which involves Pakistani heritage men ... who target vulnerable young white girls.” And with one fell swoop, probably unintentionally, Mr Straw has trivialised what is a very serious case.

 

His comments have upset a number of people for a variety of reasons. Firstly, this is not indicative of a growing trend of Pakistani men pimping and abusing white girls – as he admits himself, most sex offenders are white, which is a reflection of the racial makeup of this country. Secondly, Not all of the victims were white – there were black girls who fell victim to these men too. What all the girls did have in common was that they were vulnerable when these two men found them, not what race they were.

 

By racialising this crime, Jack Straw has actually demeaned it – not only has he dismissed some of the victims because they are not white, he has also turned our attention away from the real problems and causes of the case. It is a sad truth that there will always be men out there of all races looking to take advantage of adolescent girls and while there are still vulnerable teenagers out there they will have prey. What we need to focus on is not what race these men are, or what race their victims are, but on how we can stop them from finding these girls in the first place. We need to look more into providing adequate social care and emotional support to teenagers of all races and both sexes so that those who might otherwise be vulnerable to the approaches of these men have the self esteem and the support network not to be drawn in. We need to look at the local facilities to see what there is for adolescents to do other than hang around where these predators can find them. What we don’t need to do is convince ourselves that it happened to them because they’re white, because that is demeaning, unhelpful and plainly untrue.