Several things here.
Firstly these people are criminals, nothing more than that. It mostly all has happened in some North West towns, which in itself reveals a few things. The towns in question have a very backwards Pakistani population, that came from manual working backgrounds that place little if any emphasis on education. As their kids grew up, they spent their time doing shift work and didn't bother with what their kids got up to, in this case boys. Such crimes have not happened in London or the South East (more affluent) region, aside the Oxford case.
Amongst these boys there is a prevalent mindset that "White girls" are easy. Now they are not the only ones who think this, black men do, other Europeans do e.g. Italians, Greeks, whey they see English girls visit their resorts, however these "men" have taken into far more dark territory.
So why "White girls"? It's not just any White girls, but vulnerable girls, who come from working class backgrounds and often had many issues e.g. drug abuse, broken homes and so forth. They were seen as the most easily available "prey". Who would believe such girls, who are already demonised and stereotyped in society. Indeed the report mentions how the police couldn't be bothered with them (due to delinquency), schools didn't care (many had been expelled) and the social services were afraid to speak out, due to the boggy word of racism. Have these gangs done it to other women, including their own? Yes they have, however due to cultural constraints, parental support and so forth, these girls were not readily available. This is why you don't see Middle Class girls turn up amongst the victims.
So how did they go about the crimes? At first they would simply approach the girls, often young aged between 11-17 and buy them gifts, such as mobile phones, laptops, clothes and so on. Where did they approach the girls? Many times the girls would be loitering the streets or hanging outside or even near schools. The girls of course would be flattered, as no had shown them attention, even love and so believed these men to be their boyfriends. After a while the pleasant man they had met starts making funny demands e.g. his friends "like" her, and she needs to do "things for him". This is where the girl is at a crossroads, they would either say yes and go along with it all, or they would refuse and then came the violence and intimidation to force compliance. Ironically the girls who went along with it all, naively did so due to their age and were afraid of "upsetting" their man. Once this stage is crossed, the "relationship" is gone and it is a textbook case of pimping and prostitution.
Thanks to the courage of some of the victims, they came forward, along with social workers who literally risked all, and bought the cases to the media and of course the police. Once the outrage erupted, arrests were swift and many of these vile savages have been jailed for life or near life.
So should the community shoulder the blame? Partly yes. They didn't spend time with their offspring and when alarm bells were being set off, some of these folks blamed the "wayward" girls. This isn't something sections of the community indulged in, as mentioned before the authorities did the same thing. The thing is, with crimes such as this they were often carried out, out of sight. If you read many of the reports these crimes happened amidst the seedy underbelly of the "night-time" economy, i.e. takeaways, clubs and so on. Very few people in the community are familiar with the going ons in this area of our society. The sons, brothers etc who were indulging in this were doing so away from prying eyes. The reports talk about extensive use of safe houses, remote parks, fields, derelict sites and hotels. A parent wouldn't know any different. Unlike when a young man who embraces Islamic extremism you will see visible changes e.g. change in appearance, more overtly extreme in views, stopping worshipping at the local mosque and going to a "centre" or house etc. With such men there wold be no change and they would go about their normal routines. Those who may have been asked about where they going, where they have been and why they took so long, by parents, wives and so forth, would have just replied they had been with friends, and no one was none the wiser.
What can be done to prevent this? There are already numerous organisations that have been and still are working to combat anything like this happening again. So they visit community centres, approach young Pakistani men to talk to them and visit mosques (something I'll bring up in a a bit) , and involve themselves with what is happening in the night-time economy. Such folk such as Mohammed Shafiq, the director of the Lancashire-based Ramadhan Foundation, are doing a great job in this regard.
"I was one of the first within the Muslim community to speak out about this, four years ago," says Shafiq, "and at the time I received death threats from some black and Asian people. But what I said has been proved right — that if we didn't tackle it there would be more of these abusers and more girls getting harmed."
Shafiq says he is "disgusted" to hear some perpetrators refer to their victims as "white trash". He adds: "I say to them, would you treat your sister or daughter like this?"
Gangs, Girls and Grooming: The Truth | Standpoint
"Apna Haq" is another group, and also mentioned in the article.
Going back to the issue of faith, these men were completely irreligious. One Imam in Bury said to me "the only time you will see one of these bastards in a mosque is when they are dead" i.e. for their funeral prayer.
They were involved in drugs, weapons, alcohol fuelled rape parties and were not reachable by the religious establishment. Another thing, these girls were never converted, or forced to Pakistan or anything like that, that might be the case with "Love Jihad" or whatever term is used now for it. The religious element was not there.
On a final note, I'd like to say my prayers are with the victims and my damnation and anger upon these so called men. It has been a real slap in the face of those who denied it. The small comfort is that hopefully we will never see this again, as the crime is well known now and people will look out for it, and that includes the authorities, social services, the police and of course the Pakistani community.
