Rotherham’s MP Sarah Champion tells me: “Someone said: ‘If there had been an earthquake in Rotherham that had ruined the lives of more than a thousand families, and local structures were down, we would get emergency help. But 1,400 children’s families have been decimated, local governance is in disarray – and we are being left to deal with it.’”
In August, the Jay report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham set out the horrific scale of the town’s problem, the vicious abuse that shattered victims’ lives, and the “blatant” failures of the authorities to stop or prevent it.
Almost four months later, the town is still reeling. Community spirit unravelled in the wake of the investigation, which confirmed that the majority of the perpetrators were Asian – British Pakistani men. Far-right groups marched through the streets and there was a spike in Islamophobic abuse nationally. Little seems to have improved.
First came a flurry of resignations, including that of the police and crime commissioner, and the council’s director of children’s services. Ten officers are being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and government inspectors are investigating the council.
But Champion says the victims are still being let down. “It’s horrendous,” she says flatly. The MP said she secured emergency funding to employ Jayne Senior, the former manager of Risky Business, which helps vulnerable young woman – and the only organisation to be commended in the Jay report – to work with victims of child sexual abuse. But one dedicated worker is not enough.
Champion won’t disclose how many victims they are working with, but says new victims are coming forward all the time – seven in the last week. “Some want to give evidence [against their abusers] and need support, some want to be rehoused because they are still living on the same street as their abusers and some want counselling,” she says.
In the town centre, English Defence League marches continue, local people avoid the city centre and residents relay stories of racism. Champion tells me some British Pakistani women are so intimidated that it is “stopping them from going into their own town”.
Shopkeepers fear they will go out of business because the protests are keeping people away. One young British Asian woman – from a third-generation Rotherham family – told Champion that she had been confronted by a white man in the town centre who told her: “We are going to start raping [Asian girls] to even the score.” Others complained of having their headscarves pulled off, being given dirty looks or being told to: “Go back to your own country.”
Zlakha Ahmed of the Asian women’s charity Apna Haq has been working to raise awareness of child sexual exploitation in the town’s Asian community, educating parents about the issues and how to recognise and report it.
And finally, there are signs of a fightback. Community groups have been working hard to restore pride in the town and bring people together. There are plans for a festival, and projects between artists and local traders. United Rotherham, a social media project, has been trying to change the town’s image, one tweet at a time, cheerfully promoting itself as coming from the town which is: “Never in the news for anything good, but full of people who are.”