Branded a racist – for trying to save girls from their vile abusers
F licking through the newspapers at my home in West Yorkshire yesterday, i found myself struggling with conflicting emotions.
Yes, i welcomed the successful conviction — this time in newcastle — of another predatory gang for exploiting and abusing vulnerable girls.
And i felt immense relief that 18 people, all but one of them men, are no longer free to groom, drug, assault and rape children, to incite prostitution or profit from human trafficking.
There was pride, too, that my work as an MP has helped expose this evil. But there was also huge frustration.
it is almost 15 years since i first sounded a warning about the plight of young white girls being exploited by men from Asian communities in Britain.
Yet on Wednesday evening, as i watched the TV news, it was clear to me there are broadcasters still reluctant to state the basic facts about who the abusers are, for fear of appearing racist or islamophobic.
let us be clear: the men in the dock were mainly British-born from Pakistani, Bangladeshi, iranian, iraqi, Turkish and indian communities, where i have seen a deep-rooted misogyny that perpetratesthis form of abuse.
Some on the left still refuse to accept that these are culturally rooted crimes, while key religious and secular leadersin British-Asian communities are slow to come forward to condemn the men involved.
no doubt i will be called racist for even daring to point this out. it is nothing new.
Ever since i was first made aware of the problems and worked to highlight them, i have lived with hateful accusations of racism. But i have never let that deter me. i had to keep doing what i knew in my heart was right.
Today, it is far easier for victims and the authorities to speak out about these crimes. Media coverage of the grooming gangs in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and elsewhere in recent years means there is a greater awareness of the problem.
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acclaimed BBc TV drama Three girls — which starred Maxine Peake as the woman who exposed an Asian paedophile ring preying on white teenagers in Rochdale — did much to help disarm the fear of speaking out by families and youngsters caught up in the abuse.
now, there is every chance they will be believed. But this comes far too late for two generations of abused girls. it was a very different environment in 2003.
it was never my intention, when i entered politics, to tackle this racially charged issue. in fact, i had no idea that it existed until seven women appeared one morning in my constituency office in keighley, West Yorkshire.
The story they told me was almost unbelievable, so sordid and cruel that i had to force myself to listen.
All of them had teenage daughters, most aged 12 or 13. These girls, they said, were being befriended by much older men from Pakistani families and lured to ‘parties’.
There, the girls were plied with drugsand alcohol and sexually abused.
This was not the doing of just one or two perverts, or even a small paedophile ring. it was widespread, the mothers said. They had the names and addresses of 65 men they said were implicated.
The women were in earnest. They said no one else was listening to them, and they begged for help. But their claims were so appalling and pointed the blame at such a specific group of my constituents, i was suspicious.
i asked my staff to check if these women had links with Far-Right parties such as the BnP.
We found most had no political affiliations at all and, in fact, were mainly labour supporters.
Once i had overcome my initial disbelief that large- scale paedophile abuse was the norm for a section of the community — in some parts of Britain, it went back to the Eighties, when it was first reported to police — and that it was an open secret, i took my concerns to West Yorkshire police and social services. i expected they would have a hard time believing the claims — but i didn’t think i’d be flatly ignored by everyone. it was as if this crime was so toxic, no one could acknowledge its existence.
i joined the labour Party nearly 60 years ago because i cared about changing the world. My husband, Bob cryer, was MP for keighley between 1974 and 1983 and, as a former councillor, i would sometimes join him at his surgeries, listening to local concerns.
During those years, a growing section of his voters were Pakistani immigrants. Most of them were determined to assimilate quickly into the community, to be not just English, but true Yorkshiremen.
They wore sports jackets, slacksand even flat caps. The last thing they wanted was to dress as they had in Pakistan.
These men had a good grasp of English and were usually doing well for themselves, working in the factories. now they were ready to bring their wives and children to join them, and they often needed Bob’s help in arranging that.
When the women arrived, few of them spoke English. i felt they were in danger of becoming isolated, trapped without a voice inside their own communities. Many of the younger women were not permitted by their older in-laws to take language classes at the local colleges.
So i started volunteering to teach women English in their own homes. i learnt far more from them than they ever did from me, about forced marriages, beatingsand the traditions of ‘honour’ that enslaved women.
One thing i quickly found out was that this misogyny had little to do with islam. it was rooted much more in the traditions of rural Pakistan and areas such asMirpur in kashmir. i believe it isno different in many remote rural cultures around the world, and the legacy persists.
One female Palestinian MP told me forced marriages are normal for both Muslim and christian families in her town.
After my husband died in a car crash in 1994, i was invited to carry on his work and won the keighley seat for labour at the next election. i’d never had any ambition to go into Parliament, but Bob had helped many people and i wanted that to continue.
By 1997, 24 per cent of my constituency was of Pakistani heritage and another 4 per cent Bangladeshi. i knew there were many girls living hidden existences in those communities, and i began campaigning against their forced marriages.
Sometimes, the girls came to see me, entering through the back door for fear of being seen and terrified the men in their familieswould find out.
For years, i had been fighting to protect young Pakistani women in keighley. Suddenly, it was even younger white girls who needed my help. But no one would listen.
Finally, with the help of journalist Justin Rowlatt (now the BBc’sSouth Asia correspondent, but then with channel 4 news), i wasinterviewed on TV.
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lAST, people were listening. it got an investigation into the mothers’ claims started, and i then worked with the home Secretary, David Blunkett, on legislation that would make grooming a specific offence.
Support was not forthcoming from all quarters. i couldn’t get The guardian interested. itsreporters seemed paralysed by political correctness.
When i wasn’t being openly accused of racism and religioushate — my name was on the website islamophobia Watch — i was painted as someone who didn’t understand Asian culture.
The former london mayor ken livingstone certainly thought so.
After the channel 4 interview, he invited me for a chat at his london office, during the parliamentary recess. i went, taking one of the seven mothers with me.
Today, ken insists he can’t remember this meeting. Perhapshe has a selective memory, because i remember it only too well.
‘i think there’s a misunderstanding here,’ he told me. ‘ You see, Ann, you don’t understand this
community. I do. You’re where we were in London ten years ago — and now we understand the way they work.’
The conversation was absurd. I knew far better than him the risks of standing up to the Asian male community. I also understood that my actions would give ammunition to the fascists and white racists to stir up hatred of all Muslims. Indeed, in 2005 the then leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, stood against me in Keighley (and lost).
It was sometimes very difficult to know how to act for the best. But I held on to my core belief that we must talk about it.
In 2004, five abusers in Keighley were sent to prison. But it was a partial victory at best — remember, the mothers had given me 65 names. Men who might still be abusing girls were roaming the streets.
It is vital that we keep talking about these crimes and where the problems really lie. I believe police and social services on the front line understand the scale of the abuse and will never again turn a blind eye.
The real obstacle lies with the middle managers in these organisations, steeped in political correctness and desperate to protect community relations. They seem terrified of being seen as racist if they even listen to white girls accusing Asian men of sex abuse. But that fear is holding us hostage — and failing those girls.
As for the accusations of racism against me, well, they have been hurtful. Three of my grandchildren are half-Indian and the fourth is half-African. I love them all, and the thought they might ever read that Grandma is a racist has caused me pain.
It has taken all my courage at times to withstand the slurs, but it has been worth it — not least for the text message I recently received from my granddaughter.
She had watched a documentary I’d been in about grooming gangs. Her message read: ‘I’m so proud of you, Grandma.’