Jump to content

Talk:Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Proposed Deletion

[edit]

When "84% of researchers say that grooming gang members were Asian" it is important that we do not try to hide uncomfortable facts and history. [1]

I vote not to delete this page. Johnmars3 (talk) 05:40, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]


This page is a rather blatant attempt to manufacture a narrative, whitewashing/minimizing the phenomenon of Asian/Muslim grooming gangs in the UK with a misleading title and introduction which are not supported by the rest of the page or the majority of sources. Only a single source refers to this as a "panic" of any sort. It is telling that the first reference to any actual data, in the second paragraph, reads "Some statistical analysis...", meanwhile the rest of the article indicates that the majority of "statistical analyses" unambiguously imply that Asian Muslims are overrepresented among group-based child sexual abuse perpetrators, including the Home Office study which, as detailed in the article, was misleadingly interpreted in line with the false narrative of this page. In modern parlance, this page is misinformation/disinformation and therefore should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lp9mm8g (talkcontribs) 15:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support. This page is worse than pointless. It seeks to obfuscate. Riposte97 (talk) 20:26, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

Renamed page

[edit]

The title of this page has been changed from 'Muslim grooming gang panic' to 'South Asian Muslim grooming gang panic'. However, the sources referred to throughout the article do not refer this phenomenon as "South Asian Muslim grooming gangs"' but rather "Asian grooming gangs", "Muslim grooming gangs" or "Pakistani grooming gangs". After a quick Google search, I was also unable to find the term 'South Asian grooming gang' receiving mass usage. I believe this may be because Asian typically already refers to South Asians in the UK so it does not need further specification. The term is also inappropriate as it excludes perpetrators from regions outside of South Asia such as Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis, Kurds, Turks, Egyptians, Moroccans and Albanians who have been involved in notable cases. Given this, changing the page name may be in breach of WP:NOR or WP:NPOV. Kioj156 (talk) 19:27, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 16 August 2024

[edit]
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom (closed by non-admin page mover) Reading Beans 12:08, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]


South Asian Muslim grooming gang panicEthnicity and grooming gangs in the United Kingdom – As discussed above, "South Asian" is not commonly used by sources. I don't think "moral panic" is unanimous/sourced enough to meet WP:NPOVTITLE. Taking a cue from this BBC article on the topic: "Grooming gangs and ethnicity: What does the evidence say?" Jonathan Deamer (talk) 19:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for starting this. Whilst I think the title is a step in the right direction, I am not sure it captures the religious element that has been reported to take place across numerous cases. I understand the controversy surrounding the term 'Asian grooming gangs' - on one end, the perception that it is a 'dog whistle' term that will only stoke community tensions and on the other by Sikh and Hindu groups who feel that it paints their entire demographic in a negative light when perpetrators are mostly neither Sikh or Hindu. However, one reason why the phenomenon has gained so much coverage is due to the perception that there is an over-representation of a certain demographic in the crime, and I do not believe the proposed title of 'Ethnicity and grooming gangs in the United Kingdom' accurately captures this. The 'moral panic' claim has also not received widespread adoption so I would not be in favour of it being included in a page title.
Multiple inquiries, investigations and victims have publicly spoken out that fears of linking race and religion to grooming gangs have prevented public discourse on this topic and I hope that we can learn from their failures. Therefore, I propose the title of 'Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom'. This would capture the phenomenon of the over-representation with most of the Asian perpetrators involved in the numerous cases hailing from Pakistan as well as other Muslim-majority countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Bangladesh etc., and is supported by the Bhatti-Sinclair and Sutcliffe study.
If the title is renamed as so, a new section can be created to stress that Muslim organisations in the United Kingdom have spoken out against the practice. Kioj156 (talk) 12:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support any of the suggestions so far as better than current. The current title is a rather egregious framing that doesn't accurately reflect either the coverage in RS or, for that matter, the reality in the UK. Both the grooming gangs and the panic that they triggered are real phenomena, though one is clearly a consequence of the other, and it doesn't make sense to frame the article just in terms of the reaction. Woshiwaiguoren (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support for Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom or simply Grooming gangs in the United Kingdom, the ''panic'' part is an egregious POV issue. Killuminator (talk) 11:19, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Another article created for the sole purpose of pushing a biased POV

[edit]

Whether you agree with this article or not, this article's title contains the biased premise that concerns about immigrant rape is "moral panic". This article asserts that "White perpetrators have been shown to be more represented in sexual assault and group-based sexual abuse crimes than any other ethnicity in the United Kingdom." This statement as well as all of the news sources fail to make it clear whether whites in the United Kingdom commit more sexual assault and group-based sexual abuse crimes in total, or per capita.

This article indirectly cites "Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation: Characteristics of Offending". This paper cites CEOP (2011), which finds 30% of offenders were of unknown ethnicity, 30% of offenders were white and 28% were "Asian" (likely South Asian). Since there are more whites than Asians in Britain, this would indicate that "Asians" commit more sexual assault per capita than whites. CEOP (2013) finds that of the 52 groups where data provided was useable, half of the groups consisted of all Asian offenders, 11 were all White offenders, 4 were all Black, and 2 were exclusively Arab. There were nine groups where offenders came from a mix of ethnic backgrounds. Looking at the offenders across all groups, of the 306 offenders 75% were Asian. This suggests that "Asians" commit 10.71x the rate of group sexual assault. The Children’s Commissioner for England carried out work in 2014 looking at police data on CSE offenders (Berelowitz et al., 2015). Data was provided by 19 out of 43 police forces, showing nearly 4,000 offenders, 1,200 of whom were involved in group-based CSE. This study found that 42% were White or White British, 17% were Black or Black British, 14% were Asian or Asian British, and 4% had another ethnicity. No data on ethnicity was recorded in 22% of cases. This would suggest that "Asians" commit sexual assault at twice the rate you'd expect given their share of the population. Lastly, the Police Foundation (Skidmore, 2016) looked at group-based CSE in Bristol, and found that those from ethnic minority backgrounds were overrepresented compared to the local area.

This article directly cites Group Localised Child Sexual Exploitation Offenders: Who and Why? which finds that Muslims made up 83% of prosecutions for Group Localised Child Sexual Exploitation, with Pakistani origin being a better statistical predictor of GLCSE than Muslim religious belief. This contradicts the statement made in the second paragraph of this article, that British whites are the "most represented" in sexual assault and group-based sexual abuse crimes. Noobnubcakes (talk) 05:09, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FORUM. Also, a single article sourcing a primary source from the Anti-Asian Quillam institute isn't worth much. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 12:51, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 September 2024

[edit]

Muslim grooming gangs in the United KingdomGrooming Gang Moral Panic in UK – Last RM was a mess, had only three folks discussing a POV mess of an article. Now that we reverted back before all these POV edits, and more folks have their eyes on this, we should consider appropriate, less inflammatory, names Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:28, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are actually two topics here and the way to carve the subject at the joints is to write separate articles about each.
Firstly, there's a need for an umbrella topic covering the Rotherham CSE scandal, the Rochdale CSE scandal, the Banbury child sex abuse ring, the Bristol child sex abuse ring, the Peterborough sex abuse case, the Telford child sexual exploitation scandal, the Derby child sex abuse ring, the Halifax child sex abuse ring, the Huddersfield grooming gang, the Newcastle sex abuse ring, and the Oxford child sex abuse ring, where the common factor is that the perpetrators were (not exclusively, but overwhelmingly) British-Pakistani men with recognizably Muslim names, which plays into narratives that the far right want to promote to you. Those were separate events, but they were taking place either concurrently or else with significant overlap in time. An article about them collectively should be given a title that includes the phrases "UK" and "grooming gang" (or preferably "paedophile ring", which is what these were). The title of this umbrella topic should not include the phrase "moral panic", because they weren't moral panics. They were catastrophic failings of police and social workers leading to an appalling amount of child rape, including rape of pre-teens.
Secondly, there's also an article to be written about the media coverage of the first topic. Journalists in general, and Andrew Norfolk in particular, said things about the crime statistics which were inaccurate, unhelpful, misleading, and promoted far right narratives. People like Tommy Robinson are chuffed that the Times published all that rubbish. There are academic sources about this too (for example here, here, and here). This second article is the one that needs a title including all the phrases "UK", "grooming gang"/"paedophile ring", and "moral panic". I'm relaxed about what order to put those phrases in.
It's possible that thirdly, there's also an article to be written about the whole sorry history of paedophilia in the UK in the early 2000s. This article would take a higher-level view of the connections between the South Asian grooming gangs, Jimmy Savile, various care homes for children, and a disgustingly large number of Christian priests. We might be able to accomplish that within Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom, though.
Anyway, I commend this multi-article structure to you all.—S Marshall T/C 22:34, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, WikiProject Islam, WikiProject Discrimination, and WikiProject United Kingdom have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPathtalk 03:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose move - I've read the support votes with great interest, and also noticed that this article was previously nominated for deletion. It seems to me that, I don't like it or it's too offensive to me/others (i.e., trying to be politically correct so not to offend certain groups) are at play here, and I ask the community to be weary of changing the article's title on those grounds. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. We report on what reliable and verifiable secondary sources say. Trying to change the title or inserting our own POV in order to appease a certain community is nothing more than WP:Original research in my opinion. If sources say "Muslim/Asian grooming gangs", then we should leave it as is. It is irrelevant what the far-right groups say or how it might or might not play into their narrative. I see this as a major reason for these requests to move/delete. We report on WP:RS secondary sources for the general reader. Far-right groups/individuals are also members of the general reader. Provided we have done our job as editors as per Wiki policy, what they chose to do with the informantion contained in the article is up to them. We are a community of editors, and not activists trying to sanitize information for political correctness or to appease certain communities. I assume Black people do not appreciate the article Nigger, Mexicans do not appreciate the Mexican Mafia article, and Germans do not appreciate the Nazi Germany article, etc... yet we have articles on them as they are in RS secondary sources. Playing activism on Wikipedia would defeat the whole purpose of this project and questions the credibility of this article and others. I also oppose the use of the term "moral panic". That is not in any credible sources (save 1) as stated above on this talk page. Using the term would be nothing more than original research. We also have to remember that there are true victims of these abuses/phenomenon. Trying to minimise/sugar coat this article so not to offend would be a disservice to the facts, and the actual victims - which are not based on hearsay or our biased opinions but from reliable and verifiable sources. I hope the person closing this request would take these into account. The article has already been so severely edited and sanitized that it makes this article meaningless to the general reader. More effort, it seems, has been spent trying to sanitize/discredit the article than reporting the facts as per our WP:NPOV policy. That is a topic for another day. Tamsier (talk) 03:35, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If sources say "Muslim/Asian grooming gangs", then we should leave it as is. But the best sources don't say that. The best sources—academic sources—say that it's sensationalist Orientalism, that it's a 'folk devil' narrative, that it is, plainly, a moral panic. It is not original research, as you accuse, to summarize what trained scholars have said. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 04:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ironically, the original POV mess was indeed trying to rightgreatwrongs. TwinkleStarzz (talk) 10:38, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The current title is clearly not what the article is about, this is an obvious problem which needs fixing. Black Kite (talk) 09:33, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per WP:NPOV. The proposed title is neutral and consistent with the article content. The suggested minor variations would also be okay. NightHeron (talk) 10:22, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I was the one who started the now wrongly closed as "keep" AFD. Personally I find it incredible that Owenx - a long standing editor and admin, could dismiss delete votes with this comment: "A few !votes were discarded as irrelevant, mostly those that called for deletion based solely on the content being offensive; the article doesn't qualify as an "attack page"."
Not a single one of those votes were "based solely on the content being offensive" - not a single one. To dismiss those votes but not have a comment on the various bad-faith "keep" votes is suspect to me, and reeks of some personal bias.
The subject is particularly charged and even on this page here we have people trying to claim censorship without evidence as they did on the AFD. It is likely that the page after the move will need to also be protected to stop the absolute mess of a POV article that recently existed from existing again. In any case, support the name change since a moral panic is exactly what reliable sources say it is, but a TNT is still better in my opinion. Thank you to Hydrangeans and Black Kite for their dillegent attention here.TwinkleStarzz (talk) 10:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Per the other replies. mer764KCTV5 / Cospaw the Wolf (He/Him | Talk!Contributions) 14:10, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support The proposed title (or minor proposed variations) is a much better match for the article. BrightVamp (talk) 19:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support renaming to a title that is more in line with WP:NPOV and actually represents the contents of the article, i.e, that it is a moral panic.
Brocade River Poems 00:04, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment moral panic heavily implies irrationality and paints a pejorative picture, therefore being POV
Kowal2701 (talk) 11:26, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bear in mind that the members of the public consuming those media and reacting angrily aren’t acting irrationally, it’s a rational and understandable reaction based on the impression they’re given. Moving to Grooming gangs in the United Kingdom would allow us to inform broadly rather than just document and refute, which would turn many readers off as it looks apologetic Kowal2701 (talk) 14:48, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest we have a section on Media coverage which includes a count of the headlines on the main cases per publication, and contrast that with the abundance of cases given by the Home Office in the lede Kowal2701 (talk) 14:53, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support move due to WP:SPADE, WP:NPOV and WP:PRECISION. The title should use sentence case and "in the United Kingdom" is better than "in the UK", but otherwise, it's fine. Scholarly consensus reflects that there's a media panic, moral panic, or scapegoating of Muslim men going on. Most RSes approach the topic through this lens.
This shouldn't prejudice any potential future decision to cover the issue of grooming by gangs (of any ethnic or racial background) in the UK, if someone decides to write an article on that. But the focus in this article, with its specific and narrow attention to Muslim men, should reflect what RSes have to say on that, otherwise the entire article risks being WP:UNDUE and WP:BIAS. Lewisguile (talk) 16:27, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, echoing most issues above.
Just10A (talk) 20:32, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose proposal as is, but strongly support renaming this article. The current article title and proposed renaming are both highly problematic and violate WP:POVTITLE. The simple solution is to remove any qualification and simply move the article to something like Grooming gangs in the United Kingdom. Then the article is not held hostage to issues around religion, ethnicity or morality, but these issues can be freely covered in the article body subject to the usual editing discussions, and reader can draw their own conclusions from there. The article would also fit more logically among the other articles within Category:Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom - notice there are many articles about crimes committed by white guys, without the need to focus on religion or ethnicity in the article title. Cnbrb (talk) 14:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Revert by M.Bitton

[edit]

My edit was reverted, even though I provided an inline quotation from the sources that are being misrepresented in the opening statement. The user claimed there is an RFC on this matter, but the only RFC I see pertains to a title change, not the article body. First of all, why mention South Asia and Pakistan separately, and then 'Muslim' again separately? Is Pakistan not in South Asia? Or is 'Muslim' a geographic region? This is nonsense. We cannot vilify the entire South Asian community when all the sources specifically refer to 'Muslims' or 'Pakistanis' in the context of South Asians. No other South Asian community has even been "alleged." You may choose to identify as South Asian, Pakistani, or Muslim as per your convenience, but there is no rule that justifies changing the info in sources for the sake of political correctness. Other communities exist too. I was polite enough to mention 'predominantly Pakistani,'. There is no other nationality indicated.I hope responsible admins will look into this. I do not engage in edit wars, especially when I know I am going to be the target of a mob revert attack. I hope responsible editors and admins will take note of what's going on in here. But considering the support above whitewashing rfc is getting, i understand if my request is ignored. DangalOh (talk) 15:45, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

the way this works is even if its pakistanis in particular , everyone will get lumped in.
much of the sourcing talks about asian and south asian and often muslim and pakistani after that fact. the conflation is a key part of the panic. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:45, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sources are extremely specific, and that’s why I used the term 'South Asian Muslims.' South Asia is rarely used without context. No other South Asian community has ever been accused of grooming gangs. The POV of the editors in favor of removing 'Muslim' and keeping only 'South Asian' is — 'In this scenario, I will identify as a South Asian, neither Pakistani nor Muslim. And if I’m going down, I’m taking everyone from South Asia down with me. Either it’s for the entire South Asian community or for no one.' And this isn’t a one-off issue where this logic has been applied. Hopeless Wikipedia. As I said, if there is any rational human admin left on Wikipedia, they will see through this. Otherwise, what’s one more whitewashed article on Wikipedia? Not like it will be anything unique. I dont wish to argue anymore or explain one thing again and again. I am not getting paid for acting as a representative of non pakistani south asian community. I’m out of here. Happy editing. DangalOh (talk) 18:06, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]