EXCLUSIVEHow leering men pursued me when I was a nine-year-old schoolgirl: Life in a town where grooming gangs operated in plain sight and their victims got the blame, writes ELIZABETH HAIGH

5 comments

1. > How leering men pursued me when I was a nine-year-old schoolgirl

   From the first sentence I thought she was referring to the DM’s readership

2. As someone female who grew up in Rotherham, it does happen, but I can see why those girls got blamed.*

   From the age of maybe 10 to 20, I couldn’t go anywhere without blokes leering and trying to talk to me. Anything from honking the horn as you went to your mates house to being followed with someone trying to start a conversation and not getting the hint. It was horrible. Really horrible.

   I remember one time walking to my friends house at ~17 years old and I had four cars honk at me, and it does make you wonder what the fuck you’re doing to attract the attention. Is my skirt short? Is it tucked in my knickers? Do I have a different wardrobe malfunction? Is it the way I walk? I cried when I got there as I had no idea what I was doing to attract so much unwanted attention that day.

   The thing is, I would always reject any advances. I was taught not to talk to strangers. Don’t accept sweets, drinks or drugs. Don’t engage. Walk home quickly along a lit route. Keep your phone handy. Tell a friend where you’re going and when you get home safely, and in turn look out for your friends. It was bad on public transport, but you just ignored and rejected and hoped they wouldn’t follow you off at your stop, which thankfully none of them did.

   Sadly for some girls, for whatever reason, often vulnerabilities I’m fortunate enough to not have experienced, they accepted the attention, they took the drinks, they went places with these strangers, they lied about who they were seeing to their friends and family. *I’d like to make clear that I don’t personally blame them for that, it is entirely the actions of the grown adult who knew what they were doing luring those girls in. But at the same time, and of that time, it’s easy to blame them for those reasons. Why don’t you know stranger danger? Why didn’t you just say no? Why did you accept a drink off a stranger? Why would you fall for someone twice your age telling you he loves you? If you’ve been raped once, why keep going back when you know what’s going to happen?

   That was entirely the thought process at the time. They did know what was happening, it wasn’t like they were grabbed off the street and put in the back of a van, they went of their own free will and even now some people can’t grasp the idea of that being what grooming is. It’s sad what happened and I’m just glad we’re changing those perceptions.

   (I’d just also like to add that my experience was rarely with Asian men, it was mostly white British blokes with the odd Asian bloke from time to time but I didn’t frequent the areas of Rotherham with higher Asian populations)

3. I think with these stories, the average guy just does not comprehend how often young women are propositioned and just how young they are when it starts.

4. It’s clear that this issue isn’t going away.

   Can we please address the fact that people like Tommy Robinson, Elon Musk, GBNews etc wouldn’t have anything to talk about if the government did a thorough job of auditing the police response and investigations? It’s clear something was very wrong with the way these crimes were investigated and brushing it under the carpet only adds fuel to the fire…

5. It’s awful, so shocking and you feel massively for the victims of this and hoping they all get justice they deserve. Then you have the worst people in society who don’t give a shit about them, hijacking their plight and using them as political cudgels, it’s disgraceful.

   I wish society would take sexual violence against women far more seriously and not only feign outrage and concern about this when the perpetrators are of certain ethnicities. 

   Sadly you only need look at how the MeToo movement was treated, the general everyday misogny and where women came forward with their stories of sexual abuse, grooming, rape and instead of support they were roundly abused, ridiculed and told to stop being hysterical feminists etc.. all by very prominent media pundits, politicians and outlets who are seemingly very concerned now about the grooming gangs scandal.

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