‘We mustn’t be allowed to ignore one type of abuse or one type of victim just because their plight is better hidden, or their community is less well understood’
– Baroness Sayeeda Warsi
The release this month of ‘Unheard Voices: The Sexual Exploitation of Asian Girls and Young Women’ by the Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK) represents a groundbreaking step in highlighting the existence of sexual abuse within UK Asian & Muslim communities – an issue which has remained largely unappreciated and unchallenged. The report conducted research into 35 ethnic-specific cases through the medium of key informants. The following are key findings brought to light:
– within the Asian/Muslim communities, ‘silence in the name of avoiding shame and preserving honour’ is currently so powerful as to take priority over the safeguarding of vulnerable girls, allowing men to continue abusing with impunity.
Additionally, a general culture of accepting authority as held by men and respect demanded from women is relied upon by abusers.
– the report dispels the common media myth that accuses Muslim men of only grooming non-Muslim, white girls. It finds the overwhelming majority of abusers to be from the same ethnic/faith background as their victims. They even suggest this to be a calculated choice, with these females being the ‘less risky’ option, unlikely to seek help or report the abuse due to honour and shame issues.
– the pattern of abuse appears to generally be planned and organised as opposed to opportunistic. Abusers often followed the ‘older boyfriend’ or ‘peer pressure’ models, targeting emotionally vulnerable girls who seek escape from often harsh and conservative home lives, exploiting these vulnerabilities through promises of love and marriage.
– overwhelmingly, 86% of case studies (30/35) involved men operating in networks, with the victim passed around and prostituted amongst many men, often acquaintances or relatives of the primary abuser. Present also was a ‘silent consent’ by other female parties to the abuse, with some actively participating in persuading the victim to allow it to continue.
– predominant factors driving the abusive behaviour included inadequate education regarding healthy relationships and sex, a precedent of familial child sex abuse not being challenged, monetary gain and peer pressure and reputation.
– girls’ voices remained unheard due to factors such as emotional attachment to the abuser, a dependency on drugs or alcohol often created and then sustained by the abuser, blackmail, fear of violent repercussions and a fear of family/ community response. The latter is central to hiding the plight of victims. There is often little or no understanding of the sexual exploitation of girls and the issue is often met with complete denial or a shifting of blame onto the female victim – a revictimisation, in essence.
To tackle this newly exposed abuse the MWNUK recommend a strategy of education, awareness and training – to be brought not only to the Asian/ Muslim communities themselves but also to front-line professionals and service providers. As to the former, Baroness Warsi urges the problem ‘be tackled at its heart – in communities, by the communities themselves’. As well as working with appropriate grassroots organisations, schools and women’s groups, ordinary people within these communities must also be involved, educated, with certain assumptions challenged – one must not simply preach to the converted.
It is essential that all frontline professionals and service staff – primarily health services, the schools system and the police – receive comprehensive training to understand both the sexual exploitation of BME victims and the different types of offender-victim models. A significant need for diversity training was highlighted in NICEM’s June submission to CEDAW (in response to the UK’s seventh Periodic Report) which described an ‘institutional racism’ that is often inadvertently held by public authority figures in Northern Ireland. The Macpherson Report of 1999 defined institutional racism as ‘being seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people’ – generally, the “oh, it’s just part of their culture” mentality. An example in practice might be when schools turn a blind eye to the fact an Asian schoolgirl has suddenly disappeared from class and ‘gone home’ or ‘gone to stay with relatives’, which can sometimes be an indication of a forced marriage. The MWNUK recommend that monitoring systems be improved to identify patterns of missing pupils at an earlier stage. This reluctance to intervene seems due to an anxiety of getting involved in an ‘unknown’ culture, or of agitating cultural sensitivities. It is hoped diversity training will also give the police force the necessary confidence to intervene in suspected abuse cases involving Asian/ Muslim victims and allow health professionals to recognise risk indicators in BME patients, patients who were previously not thought of as vulnerable to sexual abuses. Interventional strategies like this are vital.
The MWNUK considers creating awareness for and providing education to potential or actual victims from Asian/Muslim communities as crucial, as is the accessibility of this information. It is hoped such a system would work as a preventative strategy in some cases. With regards to the current schools system, with schools often being the sole source of such information for these girls, the report recommends that:
– the commencement of education and awareness regarding the existence of child exploitation should start before or upon entering secondary school.
– sex education must provide guidance on healthy relationships and the meaning of consent – and integral to this is a fostering of respect for women and girls.
What is then needed is a culturally-appropriate & specialist victim support infrastructure – such as helplines or mobile drop-in centres – that provide girls not only with a channel through which to disclose and report abuse, but with the confidence to do so. NICEM’s report has revealed that in Northern Ireland at present, there is a serious gap in service provision not only for victims of sexual abuse within BME communities, but also victims of trafficking, forced marriages and harmful cultural practices. Funding is needed to allow for independent research into BME women in NI, and to develop and provide protection for them.
Finally, the MWNUK regards as vital the recording of detailed information on the ethnicities of both offender and victim in abuse cases, with a generic ‘Asian’ as is currently often cited, proving insufficient. They identify Women’s Aid as exhibiting such good practice. In the Northern Ireland context however, NICEM’s report highlights that under the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (s.75), the PPS is not currently obliged to record statistics on religious or ethnic backgrounds. NICEM recommends that the Director of the PPS request that the ethnicities of victims and offenders of both domestic and sexual violence offences be recorded. They also recommend that the recently opened SARC be resourced to develop a template for recording data and maintaining comprehensive statistics on the ethnic and national background of its cases. Another current point of concern raised by NICEM involves the NI ‘joint Domestic and Sexual Violence strategy’; currently in its draft phrase, this piece of legislation will not provide a dedicated strategy in addressing violence against women and girls as it plans to encompass violence against men also.
What is now needed is for the government to commit real resources and funding, so as to translate the recommendations of the MWNUK’s report into action. No victim of sexual abuse must be overlooked again.
Monica Anand, NICEM policy intern