By Anna Fisher
Many people are calling for a national statutory inquiry into the “grooming gangs” scandals. In this post, I set out why we believe that this is unlikely to lead to the desired resolution.
Inquiries can be a delaying tactic and seldom hold anyone to account
I am old enough to remember the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War. It produced a lot of damning evidence but no one was held to account, even though the wrong-doing involved waging an illegal war that led to massive loss of life and destabilisation in the Middle East and beyond, which has contributed to large numbers of migrants leaving the region to escape horrific human rights abuses, right up to this day.
There have been many other statutory inquiries into public scandals, including the independent child abuse inquiry, the Grenfell Tower inquiry, the contaminated blood inquiry, and so on. Typically they uncover all sorts of dodgy, corrupt and even illegal behaviour – but they are not good at holding people to account. Typically they cost many millions of pounds, and take years, during which time nothing is done on the issue because everyone is waiting for the inquiry report. By the time the report comes out, years may have gone by with the issue dropping off the agenda, meaning there is then little pressure to actually implement the inquiry recommendations. Furthermore, there is no mechanism for enforcing the recommendations of a public inquiry.
I’d go as far as to say that the authorities often instigate an inquiry when they don’t want to address the issue in question. The inquiry pushes it into the long grass, and when it comes back, other people are likely to be responsible for dealing with the mess.
Constricted terms of reference
Another problem is that public inquiries invariably have very limited terms of reference. A good example is the Thirlwall Inquiry into the events at the Countess of Chester Hospital, which took the guilt of Lucy Letby as one of its starting points – meaning that it hasn’t been able to consider the extensive evidence that has since come to light suggesting her conviction might be a miscarriage of justice that possibly came about through efforts to hide other serious shortcomings at the hospital.
We have already had comprehensive inquiries into some of the local grooming gang scandals, including in Rotherham and Telford. We already know a lot about the patterns of offending, the terrible harm caused to the victims, and the indifference and failures of the authorities. According to the Home Office, more perpetrators than ever before are now being brought to justice by a new Grooming Gangs Taskforce.
The Government is also providing money for local work, potentially including non-statutory local inquiries, which can be more flexible. Non-statutory inquiries can be less traumatising, because victims can address the inquiry panel directly, including in private sessions. In a statutory inquiry, all questions must be asked by the legal counsel, which is sometimes disempowering and alienating for victims of trauma.
I understand and share the desire to hold to account the individuals in the police, local authorities, social services and beyond who failed so abjectly in their duty. But the way the same patterns of offending and authorities turning a blind eye are repeated all over the country suggests that this is far bigger than just bad individuals but rather that it is a systemic problem.
What we are up against is a structural system that systemically prioritises men and their needs and so-called rights at women’s and girls’ expense. A system that sees women and girls (particularly of lower social classes) as expendable, as not entitled to full human rights.
I am not convinced that an inquiry would do anything to shed light on this or bring about the real structural change that we need. Just as the seven-year long national child abuse inquiry has so far not brought about significant change three years on. During the ten long years since that inquiry started, we have seen child sexual abuse steadily increasing.
So for all these reasons, I do not think that a national statutory inquiry is the way to go.
Understanding the underlying structural factors
As I explained in my talk at our recent webinar, many structural factors contributed to the environment in which the “grooming gangs” arose and inflicted their reign of terror on local communities while the authorities turned a blind eye.
Most of these structural factors have at their heart the prioritising of men, especially men perceived as authoritative within local and national hierarchies, regardless of their ethnic origins, and the listening to those who represent men’s interests. Would a national inquiry instigated in the current climate be likely to change this? I think it’s unlikely.
Carole Pateman, in her ground-breaking book, The Sexual Contract,[*] showed how Western civilisation is based on men’s political right over, and sexual access to, women. This is the bedrock on which our society is built and this is affirmed and reaffirmed by the sexual exploitation industry, as she explains:
“When women’s bodies are on sale as commodities in the capitalist market, the terms of the original contract cannot be forgotten; the law of male sex-right is publicly affirmed and men gain public acknowledgement as women’s sexual masters – that is what is wrong with prostitution.”
While this continues unchallenged, we are unlikely to see lasting and meaningful change – and given the ever-expanding size and influence of the sexual exploitation industry, things are only likely to get worse for women and girls.
Porn and prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation are normalising and legitimising the exact kind of behaviour seen in the grooming gang scandals. OnlyFans is bringing the treatment of girls and young women as disposable sexual commodities ever further into the mainstream – grooming girls and young women to see their main purpose as pleasing men and gaining their approval and grooming boys and young men as users, takers and pornography makers. Meanwhile pimps large and small are profiting from all of this and the British state not only refuses to condemn it as a violation of women’s rights but instead welcomes and condones it and even invests in and partners with some of the biggest commercial enterprises profiting from it.
What hope is there that we will end the epidemic of sexual abuse and exploitation of girls and young women when all of this continues?
It is beyond time to say NO to men’s sex right, to men’s impunity to sexually use and abuse women and girls.
This is what the Nordic Model is about and why we are calling for it.
Breaking the omertà
The Nordic Model aims above all to change attitudes and norms. It makes paying for sex acts from anyone – women, girl, man, boy, or trans person – illegal while also decriminalising selling sex acts and putting in high-quality services to support those involved and to help them exit if that is what they want to do (multiple studies show that about 90% of women involved in prostitution want to get out but can’t see how to).
The Nordic Model is truly revolutionary because it strikes at the very heart of men’s sex right, which as Carole Pateman has explained, is a foundation stone of modern civilisation, and also at the omertà, the unbreakable code of silence and extreme loyalty to men’s systematic advantaging at the expense of women and girls.
When we consider this and the vast amounts of money that can be made from pimping, it is not surprising that there is a lot of resistance – with people making all sorts of claims about the Nordic Model’s harms that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.
But we need to go further and to ban all third parties profiting from other people’s prostitution, as in fact is required by Article 6 of CEDAW. Do you remember the furore when Boris Johnson planned to breach international law and override the Brexit divorce agreement? Why is there not a similar furore that the UK has still not implemented much of CEDAW nearly 40 years after it ratified it, which is just as much a violation of international law? No doubt it is something to do with that male sex right and the omertà on challenging it.
We also need to implement a proper age of consent of 16 (and 18 in sexual exploitation cases) below which any sexual activity with an adult is automatically considered statutory rape/assault. As I mentioned in my talk on the ‘grooming gang’ scandals, currently it is set at 13. 13 FFS!
We need to bring the Modern Slavery Act 2015 into line with the international definition, so that sex trafficking is as easy to prosecute as labour trafficking. That way we could replace the confusing child sexual exploitation terminology with ‘human trafficking for the exploitation of prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation’ – or sex trafficking – in line with international law. This would mean that it would be recognised as a serious human rights abuse and remove or reduce the possibility that people could think it is a lifestyle or free choice.
We need the police to be trained to implement all of this professionally and the Government to prioritise it and invest in developing police expertise over time.
And alongside all of this we need investment in high quality services for everyone caught up in the sexual exploitation industry that provide genuine routes out and alternatives.
As Gisèle Pelicot so aptly put it, shame needs to change sides. But that is unlikely to happen while men’s sex right continues unchallenged. The power imbalance also needs to shift so that it is more balanced. That is what we need to achieve. We believe the above changes would be a first step in that direction.
And yes, it would be expensive – but as we show in our report on the case for investing in equality, it would quickly pay for itself as entrenched social problems gradually subside.
[*] PATEMAN, C. (2018) Sexual Contract: 30th anniversary edition, with a new preface by the author. STANFORD University Press.