By the STAIKOU DIMITRA
(FREELANCE JOURNALIST , PROFESSIONAL WRITER ABOUT INDIA,PAKISTAN,BANGLADESH
,CHINA AND MIDDLE EAST IN GREEK AND INTERNATIONAL PRESS)
The pack of which Zahid was a founding subordinate was convicted of systematically sexually abusing 2 underage girls betwixt 2001 and 2006, erstwhile the girls were 13 years old. Zahid already had a erstwhile condemnation successful 2016, wherever helium was sentenced to imprisonment for intersexual interaction with a 14-year-old girl.
During the proceedings successful June 2025, a full of 7 men were recovered blameworthy connected a full of 50 counts, including rape, indecent battle connected a minor, and procuring a kid for sex. Zahid was recovered blameworthy of 20 offenses (including rape, indecent acts with a minor, and attempting to lure a insignificant into a intersexual act). His condemnation and that of his accomplices transportation precise terrible sentences: the sentences for the others scope from 12 to 29 years.
The 2 students were 13 years aged erstwhile the exploitation began (2001-2006). Zahid ran an underwear stall astatine a marketplace (a lingerie stall astatine Rochdale Indoor Market). He gave the girls escaped underwear, money, food, drinks (alcohol) successful speech for sex. One of the students lived successful a attraction home. Zahid was going to the instauration to prime her up and bring her back.
The tribunal revealed however the girls were victims of intersexual maltreatment from the property of 13 successful soiled flats, car parks, alleyways, and abandoned warehouses successful Manchester.Referred to arsenic Girl A and Girl B by members of Zahid’s gang, they were treated arsenic “sex slaves” who were forced to slumber with whoever the perpetrators instructed them to.Both girls, who didn’t cognize each other, came from profoundly troubled household backgrounds, and their perpetrators offered them drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, arsenic good arsenic accommodation, with the purpose of manipulating them.
The constabulary released footage of their interrogation.When imposing the sentence, Judge Jonathan Seely stated that the attraction of the girls by the “predatory” men was “unacceptable.””They were abused, humiliated, and past rejected,” helium said.It would person been evident to these men that they were craving the attraction their household lives weren’t providing them. They felt they had small oregon nary prime but to taxable to the astir changeless intersexual maltreatment inflicted upon them.
Detective Constable Jay Leacock, from Greater Manchester Police, said the men “exploited the girls’ vulnerability for their ain perverted intersexual gratification.”
“This horrific maltreatment knew nary bounds, contempt their denials passim this lengthy probe and trial,” helium said.
They had a casual contempt for these women erstwhile they were girls and proceed to amusement nary remorse for their unforgivable actions each these years later.
Liz Fel, a Crown Prosecution Service peculiar prosecutor, said the men took vantage of the teenagers’ “difficult circumstances” and praised the young girls for their courageousness successful testifying. “Both victims person shown tremendous spot and dignity passim a agelong and hard ineligible process,” helium said.
Analyzing the victims’ profiles, the girls successful Rochdale were peculiarly susceptible to intersexual maltreatment owed to a operation of personal, family, and societal factors. They lived successful troubled household environments with constricted supervision oregon neglect, portion poorness and deficiency of enactment made them much babelike connected others. They were young (13 years old), with constricted judgement and acquisition to admit the danger, portion their affectional request for acceptance and emotion made them easier to manipulate by the perpetrators. Low self-esteem and a deficiency of a societal enactment web accrued their vulnerability, portion the perpetrators utilized gifts, money, alcohol, intelligence pressure, and threats to isolate and power them. The effect was that the combined power of these factors made them peculiarly susceptible to systemic exploitation, particularly erstwhile the authorities failed to intervene successful a timely manner. As the protagonist of the bid Baby Reindeer, Donny Dunn, says astir intersexual abuse, “That’s what maltreatment does to you, you know? It makes you a magnet for each the weirdos successful life. This unfastened coiled for them to smell.
Police and societal services successful Rochdale person been heavy criticized for their failings. In galore cases, minors who reported maltreatment did not find support. Fear of racist targeting of the number Pakistani assemblage successful England appears to person hindered the timely probe of the case. Ultimately, it had disastrous consequences: it delayed the investigations, near the victims exposed to further abuse, and sent the connection that governmental correctness tin instrumentality precedence implicit kid protection. But shouldn’t the request to support citizens instrumentality precedence implicit the request for governmental correctness, particularly erstwhile we spot earlier our precise eyes however important timely involution by nine is? The extortion of quality beingness indispensable ever instrumentality precedence implicit the fearfulness of being considered a racist society. Unfortunately, however, this doesn’t ever happen.
A 2014 study recovered that successful Rotherham, galore children were abused for years by groups of men, chiefly from Muslim communities with Pakistani origins. The study states that municipal and societal services were dilatory to act, partially due to the fact that they were acrophobic astir being accused of racism oregon disrupting societal cohesion. In Telford, England, an autarkic enquiry recovered that determination was a “nervousness astir race… astir a reluctance to analyse cases of kid maltreatment by what was described arsenic the ‘Asian’ community” owed to fears of governmental correctness oregon accusations of racism.
A caller nationalist reappraisal by Louise Casey revealed that successful astir two-thirds of cases of kid intersexual exploitation by “grooming gangs” successful the UK, the nationality oregon root of the perpetrators, who were predominantly of Pakistani descent, was not recorded due to the fact that authorities feared accusations of racism oregon that assemblage tensions would escalate. This avoidance led to incomplete data, delayed the knowing of transgression patterns, and hindered timely action, resulting successful victims’ spot successful the justness strategy being shaken. Casey is present proposing afloat and mandatory signaling of nationality/citizenship, a nationalist survey, and the reopening of hundreds of “cold cases.”
Finally, successful the satellite of escaped question of goods and radical successful which we live, if we privation to proceed to beryllium harmless wrong the model of the escaped question of the globalized economy, taste differences should not beryllium utilized arsenic a “shield” for transgression behavior. The exertion of the instrumentality indispensable stay strict and adjacent for all, careless of nationality oregon religion. At the aforesaid time, signaling the nationality and religion of perpetrators helps successful knowing patterns and prevention, without starring to the targeting of full communities.