Over the past few years it has sometimes seemed as though no news bulletin goes by without an awful account of child sex abuse. Celebrities and children's entertainers, including Rolf Harris and the late Jimmy Savile, have been revealed as molesters; so have some teachers and clerics. The latest horror was laid bare on August 26th, in a report into the sexual exploitation of children in Rotherham, a poor northern English town. The report is also painful for what it suggests about race relations in Britain. The investigation by Alexis Jay, a former chief inspector of social work, uncovers a catalogue of offences, mostly by Pakistani men against white girls. Children as young as u were plied with drink and drugs, raped, beaten and trafficked to be abused by men in other cities. One was doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight. Another told the investigation that gang rape was a usual part of growing up in her district. The report estimates that some 1,400 children-some from fragile family backgrounds, some in the care of the state-were abused between 1997 and 2013.
展开▼
