Excellent analysis here by Dr Kelly. As an older professional in the CSA field I followed these stories closely from afar at the time and was struck by the judgement and mythologies that played out in the lack of care and response these victims received. Patriarchal notions of what a ‘real’ victim of sexual violence looks and acts like live on today, as do notions of who sexual offenders are. Until we grapple with the fact that sexual violence is ‘ruthlessly democratic’ in that it occurs across every strata of society we will never eliminate it. It is well overdue time for facts to dominate the conversation about sexual violence: stories from survivors can teach us much.
Forgot to add that the Pelicot case evidences a clear picture of another demographic behaving appallingly. Shall we also ban white, French, middle aged, married men?
Thank you for this article, Dr. Kelly. I wanted to know more about the underlying story but there's so much right-wing misinformation I didn't know where to begin. Which I'm sure is the point of the misinformation.
It's so easy for the far-right to boil down complex problems into easily digestible narratives with simple solutions, more often than not with the help of a negligent or actively complicit media. I'm not sure how we overcome that.
I don't think we can overcome it because these rich, white men know they cannot let have anyone else have a seat at the table because it will dilute their power and influence. Now the President of the largest economy in the world will ensure that their voices are magnified more than ever.
Excellent article, thank you Dr Kelly and David. I’d been hearing a lot about it on women’s hour from the BBC but didn’t know the full story. Was great to read it all so succinctly put.
Isn’t it strange that right wingers suddenly care about women and girls when they have a nice way to scapegoat certain ethnic groups?
"Isn’t it strange that right wingers suddenly care about women and girls when they have a nice way to scapegoat certain ethnic groups?"
100%
Same deal with them suddenly caring about 'women's rights' - but only when it comes to bathrooms and sport, because that gives them a convenient way to punch down on trans people.
I think you forgot to put quotes around care. Do they actually care? I honestly don’t think so. They would sacrifice a million women to get the immigrants. You think they would ever give a first thought to protecting victims if it meant pushing the narrative?
Thank you so much for this article. I have been following this since it broke, including watching the docos. I was so inspired and heartbroken by the girls story that it helped encourage me to speak to the NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care, back in 2019. I follow some of them on socials, I can't believe how some are still fighting to get chargers dropped that should never have happened. I agree with the attitudes you spoke about. I have always spoken about how a white gang forced me into prostitution as a young teen. It was ignored by the police. Then age 16 I was gang raped by a Maori gang and it was treated far different (still is). What happened to me happened in the 1980s, it is desperately sad to see absolutely nothing has changed. I used drugs and got into trouble just as the UK girls did. When it comes to government help and peoples attitudes honestly both sides are shit when it comes to cases of under age trafficking and abuse. I have been trying to get help forever. We have a right wing government who talks about crime here, but people like me and those UK women often end up on a benefit (I'm on a disability one) and when ask for a food grant under this government they said "no" the other day. So the right wing speaks, but on the ground actual help doesn't actually ever exist. That is the biggest problem with the right wing.
🫂If it helps you to know, you also have helped people over the time you have shared your truth here & other places. As the women inspired you, so you inspire others - courage & honesty are contagious for those who seek it, or for those of us who have our eyes & our minds opened by knowing what we are shielded from... By luck? By social strata? By media bias? By the male framing of abused females as sluts & people who "asked for it"? 🤷🏻♀️
Excellent reporting. It makes me so angry that so much time, effort and resources go into following up the misdirection when they could be focusing on the genuine issues.
What a brilliant piece. I particularly admire this succinct bit at the end:
"To say that the problem that needs to be tackled is political correctness, Islam, or immigration rather than patriarchy, classism and an underlying disregard for young people, is to say that only some victims matter."
It sums up why I have felt so uneasy seeing right-wing hand-wringing about 'grooming gangs' on reddit lately.
I was born and grew up in Rotherham and lived there until I went away to uni at 18. I remember being utterly shocked when news of this grooming and abuse first broke. The idea that such evil things had been going on in the shadows in the very place where I grew up, and which forms the backdrop to my childhood memories, is deeply sickening.
Sadly, Rotherham wasn't the only place where this evil was rampant. God help us.
That Farage, Robinson and the like would seek to subvert such horror for their own ends is, sadly, unsurprising.
Now THIS is journalism. This is the kind of quality I want to see from major media, but we are not. Thankfully we have Webworm to produce the quality stuff.
Look to paraphrase Hannah Gadsby, they don't give a shit about women and children, just white men's reputations. They don't care how many of us they throw to the wolves just to get the reactions they want from other white people, particularly white men who mostly don't lift a damn finger to actually help victims or stop it happening in the first place. Ask any one of these bloviating gammons when the last time they ACTUALLY stepped in and helped a woman or child from violence of any sort and they'll splutter and fail to find a reasonable response.
I am pretty sure I'm not the only woman and former child victim of violence who is so absolutely fed up with these men sputtering in indignation at any sniff of trouble from brown and black people but completely ignoring, if not perpetrating, the violence in their own communities. It's infuriating.
Thank you David and Dr Kelly. This is a topic I have spent a lot of time looking into because I find it interesting how the story is being played out across the world. I'm not sure about NZ but in Australia we are a deeply racist country so it does not take much to whip people into a frenzy. Add some powerful voices (who have a vested interest in keeping right wing governments in power) and Murdoch media and you have the perfect storm.
In the UK the riots last year were triggered by straight up disinformation and Musk bolstered this. People were chanting Tommy Robinson for fucks sake. Musk, Mowbray et al go for people like Robinson because they know Islamophobia is the quickest route to whip up racism especially in places like the UK, Aus and likely NZ.
Thanks to you for getting Dr. Annie Kelly, and thanks to her as well! So gross! I would say the US has the problem of not caring that’s it’s mostly poor girls and non-white people. But you know everyone would lose their minds if it was largely a non-white group in any of the cases. 50 cases of white men doing this would get no attention, but one example would be a media frenzy for years. Well, I guess that’s exactly what happened here. 😥
Excellent analysis here by Dr Kelly. As an older professional in the CSA field I followed these stories closely from afar at the time and was struck by the judgement and mythologies that played out in the lack of care and response these victims received. Patriarchal notions of what a ‘real’ victim of sexual violence looks and acts like live on today, as do notions of who sexual offenders are. Until we grapple with the fact that sexual violence is ‘ruthlessly democratic’ in that it occurs across every strata of society we will never eliminate it. It is well overdue time for facts to dominate the conversation about sexual violence: stories from survivors can teach us much.
Pinning this.
Forgot to add that the Pelicot case evidences a clear picture of another demographic behaving appallingly. Shall we also ban white, French, middle aged, married men?
This is such an incredible comment. Thank you. The patriarchal piece is so important.
Thank you for this article, Dr. Kelly. I wanted to know more about the underlying story but there's so much right-wing misinformation I didn't know where to begin. Which I'm sure is the point of the misinformation.
It's so easy for the far-right to boil down complex problems into easily digestible narratives with simple solutions, more often than not with the help of a negligent or actively complicit media. I'm not sure how we overcome that.
Your last paragraph absolutely nails it, Joe.
I don't think we can overcome it because these rich, white men know they cannot let have anyone else have a seat at the table because it will dilute their power and influence. Now the President of the largest economy in the world will ensure that their voices are magnified more than ever.
💯👍🏾
Excellent article, thank you Dr Kelly and David. I’d been hearing a lot about it on women’s hour from the BBC but didn’t know the full story. Was great to read it all so succinctly put.
Isn’t it strange that right wingers suddenly care about women and girls when they have a nice way to scapegoat certain ethnic groups?
"Isn’t it strange that right wingers suddenly care about women and girls when they have a nice way to scapegoat certain ethnic groups?"
100%
Same deal with them suddenly caring about 'women's rights' - but only when it comes to bathrooms and sport, because that gives them a convenient way to punch down on trans people.
I think you forgot to put quotes around care. Do they actually care? I honestly don’t think so. They would sacrifice a million women to get the immigrants. You think they would ever give a first thought to protecting victims if it meant pushing the narrative?
I think the quotes are very much implied!
Indeed!
I was getting what was laid down. I just wanted to pile on 🥲
Thank you so much for this article. I have been following this since it broke, including watching the docos. I was so inspired and heartbroken by the girls story that it helped encourage me to speak to the NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care, back in 2019. I follow some of them on socials, I can't believe how some are still fighting to get chargers dropped that should never have happened. I agree with the attitudes you spoke about. I have always spoken about how a white gang forced me into prostitution as a young teen. It was ignored by the police. Then age 16 I was gang raped by a Maori gang and it was treated far different (still is). What happened to me happened in the 1980s, it is desperately sad to see absolutely nothing has changed. I used drugs and got into trouble just as the UK girls did. When it comes to government help and peoples attitudes honestly both sides are shit when it comes to cases of under age trafficking and abuse. I have been trying to get help forever. We have a right wing government who talks about crime here, but people like me and those UK women often end up on a benefit (I'm on a disability one) and when ask for a food grant under this government they said "no" the other day. So the right wing speaks, but on the ground actual help doesn't actually ever exist. That is the biggest problem with the right wing.
I'm so sorry to hear your story. It's hell.
I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your story.
🫂If it helps you to know, you also have helped people over the time you have shared your truth here & other places. As the women inspired you, so you inspire others - courage & honesty are contagious for those who seek it, or for those of us who have our eyes & our minds opened by knowing what we are shielded from... By luck? By social strata? By media bias? By the male framing of abused females as sluts & people who "asked for it"? 🤷🏻♀️
Excellent reporting. It makes me so angry that so much time, effort and resources go into following up the misdirection when they could be focusing on the genuine issues.
What a brilliant piece. I particularly admire this succinct bit at the end:
"To say that the problem that needs to be tackled is political correctness, Islam, or immigration rather than patriarchy, classism and an underlying disregard for young people, is to say that only some victims matter."
It sums up why I have felt so uneasy seeing right-wing hand-wringing about 'grooming gangs' on reddit lately.
👍🏾💯Perfect summation... As usual mis-labelling the problem to suit their desired narrative ⁉️
I was born and grew up in Rotherham and lived there until I went away to uni at 18. I remember being utterly shocked when news of this grooming and abuse first broke. The idea that such evil things had been going on in the shadows in the very place where I grew up, and which forms the backdrop to my childhood memories, is deeply sickening.
Sadly, Rotherham wasn't the only place where this evil was rampant. God help us.
That Farage, Robinson and the like would seek to subvert such horror for their own ends is, sadly, unsurprising.
Oh wow. I am always amazed when Webworm readers end up having a geographical proximity to certain topics that at times feel very far away from me.
Webworm's tentacles have a very long reach. (Wait, do worms have tentacles…?)
Now THIS is journalism. This is the kind of quality I want to see from major media, but we are not. Thankfully we have Webworm to produce the quality stuff.
Look to paraphrase Hannah Gadsby, they don't give a shit about women and children, just white men's reputations. They don't care how many of us they throw to the wolves just to get the reactions they want from other white people, particularly white men who mostly don't lift a damn finger to actually help victims or stop it happening in the first place. Ask any one of these bloviating gammons when the last time they ACTUALLY stepped in and helped a woman or child from violence of any sort and they'll splutter and fail to find a reasonable response.
I am pretty sure I'm not the only woman and former child victim of violence who is so absolutely fed up with these men sputtering in indignation at any sniff of trouble from brown and black people but completely ignoring, if not perpetrating, the violence in their own communities. It's infuriating.
Seriously, f*ck zuru and it's owners though. This was a great piece - thanks David and Annie
Thank you David and Dr Kelly. This is a topic I have spent a lot of time looking into because I find it interesting how the story is being played out across the world. I'm not sure about NZ but in Australia we are a deeply racist country so it does not take much to whip people into a frenzy. Add some powerful voices (who have a vested interest in keeping right wing governments in power) and Murdoch media and you have the perfect storm.
In the UK the riots last year were triggered by straight up disinformation and Musk bolstered this. People were chanting Tommy Robinson for fucks sake. Musk, Mowbray et al go for people like Robinson because they know Islamophobia is the quickest route to whip up racism especially in places like the UK, Aus and likely NZ.
New Zealand has that tendency also, so Australia is not alone there.
As a longtime listener of QAA I'm so happy to see Annie Kelly here on Webworm. Excellent, chilling reporting. Thank you for this sharp analysis.
It's one of the best podcasts, right? Amazing balance of research and humour.
Great column, thanks for work on this. Crikey, even I remember the reporting on the 2010-11 cases.
Thanks to you for getting Dr. Annie Kelly, and thanks to her as well! So gross! I would say the US has the problem of not caring that’s it’s mostly poor girls and non-white people. But you know everyone would lose their minds if it was largely a non-white group in any of the cases. 50 cases of white men doing this would get no attention, but one example would be a media frenzy for years. Well, I guess that’s exactly what happened here. 😥
Thanks so much for bringing this into the light.
Thank you David & Dr. Kelly
Great explainer, thank you/ kia ora Dr Kelly