Maggie Oliver is the former Greater Manchester Police detective who, together with councilor Sara Rowbotham and ex-Attorney General Nazir Afzal, exposed the failings of police and local authorities in the Rochdale child sex abuse network. She deserves a gong. They all do that.
First, they helped expose a grave injustice: the stunning failure of police to investigate and prosecute groups of men of predominantly Pakistani and Afghan descent who systematically groomed and abused young white girls, many of them minors.
Second, they had the courage to be honest about the motives that led to such failure. Not just incompetence, but an underlying culture of misogyny and misguided political correctness.
Maggie Oliver is the former Greater Manchester Police detective who exposed the failings of police and local authorities in the Rochdale child sex abuse ring
The scale of abuse was highlighted again this week with the publication of a new report which found girls were ‘at the mercy’ of pedophile gangs for years.
It claims many of the perpetrators remain at large, identifying 96 men who still pose a risk to children and insisting they represent ‘only a portion’ of abusers.
These girls were not only sexually and psychologically abused, they were also treated as subhuman. One was kept in a cage and told to behave like a dog; another was injected with heroin and died. In a chilling example of how little anyone cared, a thirteen-year-old girl had her aborted fetus taken away for DNA testing by police, who then left it forgotten in the freezer.
At the root of all this was not only a fundamental lack of respect for these victims, but also a deep-seated misogyny, reinforced by cultural prejudices. Because these girls came mainly from poor, white working-class backgrounds, because they might have gotten into trouble, there seems to have been a sense that they somehow deserved their fate.
Bad things happen to bad girls, don’t they say? It’s every rapist’s excuse, misogyny 101.
But it’s not just misogyny that allowed this scandal to unfold on such an industrial scale.
The other factor was cultural. The sad truth is that although the Home Office has found that most British grooming gangs have historically been white, the men preying on girls in these cases have largely been Muslims. And I’m afraid there can be no doubt that, in the eyes of some who belong to that faith, any woman who does not adhere to a strict set of rules loses all right to respect.
Of course, Islam is certainly not alone in this. Most religions contain misogynistic elements: not least Christianity, which blames all human suffering on Eve and preaches a virgin birth as the standard by which all women are to be judged.
The child sex abuse ring in Rochdale was systematically grooming and abusing young white girls
But while most religions today seem to interpret such ideas abstractly, Islam – especially in its politicized form – takes them increasingly literally.
The most obvious example is of course the Islamic Republic of Iran, which exercises brutal control over its female citizens and ruthlessly punishes any disobedience. There are countless horrific stories of young women and girls being arrested, imprisoned, beaten, raped and even murdered by the ‘morality police’ for what, by Western standards, would be perfectly normal behavior.
Just two weeks ago, Roya Heshmati was lashed 74 times with a leather whip for “encouraging indulgence” after walking through Tehran without a headscarf.
But Iran is not alone. Across the world, we are increasingly seeing hardline Islam expanding its reach and leaving a trail of beaten, broken women in its wake.
Pollution and rape have always been part of war. But in the hands of Islamist terrorists, they have become a systematic tactic of oppression. We’ve seen it in Syria with Islamic State; in Africa with Boko Haram – and we saw it on October 7 in Israel, especially with what happened to female revelers at the Supernova Festival.
It seems incomprehensible that one person could do to another what Hamas did on that terrible day. That is, until you understand that, in the eyes of the terrorists, because those girls at the festival were free – to dress however they wanted, to get an education, to listen to music, to fall in love – raping them was not a sin. .
Actually, it was something to brag about. . . to call home and tell your mother.
The terrifying truth is that the extremists in Iran, and their allies and associates, represent a new axis of misogynistic evil. The groups they fund – from Hezbollah to Hamas and beyond – hate Western women and their freedoms. And the fact that so few feminists and so-called feminist organizations – especially on the left – seem willing to acknowledge this is an absolute shame.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman faced a backlash when she tried to have a conversation about the ethnicity of the grooming gangs
Women and girls around the world suffer terribly, from being denied their right to education and exercise, to genital mutilation, child marriage and abuse, and all the left seems to care about is defending the rights of women with penises.
I’m sorry, but it’s true. There is more vitriol on social media directed at JK Rowling for daring to speak up on behalf of vulnerable women than there is condemnation of young girls being beaten to a pulp in the name of religion. And that is unforgivable.
This obviously suits the fanatics down to the last detail. They love nothing more than watching the useful idiots tie themselves in culturally correct knots (see Gary Lineker) to avoid being seen as insufficiently woke. It makes their job so much easier.
That’s why I get so angry when I see young women protesting in support of Hamas and, more recently, the Houthis in Yemen. Extremist Islamist groups believe that girls as young as nine can get married. They should not be corrupted by going to work, and any research they do should focus on domestic activities.
Emancipation is a sin; equality is unnatural. Everything they believe is wrong with Western civilization lies in the fact that women neglect their proper place in the world – which is to exist in the service of men.
That is something these groups want to correct. If a woman resists or strays from this path, she becomes fair game. She can be punished with whipping or even put to death, merely on the advice of men, for dishonoring her family.
Which brings us back to Rochdale. In the eyes of the perpetrators, those poor white girls were also honestly wild.
And the reason Maggie Oliver and others struggled to be heard was because no one wanted to admit the scale on which such crimes were taking place – and which ethnic groups were committing them.
And I get it: it’s not a pretty truth. We would all much rather believe that those who come to Britain to live their lives here (or whose recent ancestors did so) would do so with respect – and perhaps even enthusiasm – for our values. But unfortunately that is not always the case.
Listen to the anti-Semitic chants in the streets, see the intolerance on our college campuses. It’s their way or the highway – as former Interior Secretary Suella Braverman discovered when she tried to have this very conversation. Branded racist and chased out of government for refusing to pretend there wasn’t a problem – when it’s obvious to anyone with sense that there is.
Burying our heads in the sand of political correctness – while that’s fine if you want an easy ride in The Guardian – is not in the interests of true harmony. Or the country as a whole.
One final thought. I know that for every Muslim who supports the Iranian mission, there are a thousand who believe nothing of the sort. Who are as repulsed as we are by the crimes committed in the name of their religion, by the excuses made for barbaric practices such as honor killings and female genital mutilation and the grotesque actions of Hamas.
But with a few notable exceptions, their voices are rarely heard. Please speak up. Don’t let these fools define you, or your religion. Be outspoken in your condemnation. Not just for your own good. But for the sake of all women, and especially our girls.