It is a pattern we simply cannot ignore. In no fewer than 16 British towns and cities, grooming gangs have been prosecuted for raping young females since 2011, culminating last week in the conviction of 17 men and one woman at Newcastle Crown Court.
With the exception of two cases the perpetrators were from South Asian backgrounds. All but three victims were young white girls.
As the Chief Crown Prosecutor who brought the cases against the Rochdale grooming gang in 2012, I've come to know a disturbing amount about this crime.
And I'm sorry to say that while courts have changed a lot to make justice more accessible to victims, I don't believe that attitudes have changed for the better. If anything, they're getting worse.
Will South Asian communities condemn these atrocities – and take the necessary action? I'm not convinced. As for wider society, we must start to understand what drives this abuse if we want to stop it. Child grooming is happening under our noses – everywhere. At bus stops, in takeaways, on street corners. But we walk past, because we don't see what's happening. And neither do we see the attitudes driving it.
In particular, the appalling misogyny fuelling the growth of grooming gangs has barely been discussed.
I recall a conversation I once had at an Asian wedding where a young man told me, 'men are like gold and women are like silk'. I thought he was going to tell me something profound but
This encapsulates the hardline bias against women that has become part of the South Asian mindset. It demonstrates how Asian child abusers see teenage girls on our streets. Partly, they hate them because they're free. Girls should be pure and locked up away from temptation. When teenage girls are on the streets or drinking alcohol, the men see them as tarnished goods, available for sex. It gives them a licence to abuse.
This viewpoint wasn't always so prevalent. As a young man, I saw women in Afghanistan going to university in skirts. I marvelled at the Taj Mahal, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife. And as a Muslim I knew the Prophet himself said that your mother is three times more important than your father.
But over the past few decades ultraconservatism has swept across South Asia, and the killing of unborn babies because they are female is on the rise. There are huge parties to celebrate a boy's first birthday but nothing to mark a girl's. Men can get away with anything and women have become second-class citizens.
