Grooming gangs in Ireland targeting girls in care

A bit of an urban myth (peddled by the usual suspects on social media) that this is mainly a problem with black men and Muslims:

"Research from 2015 found that of 1,231 perpetrators of "group and gang-based child sexual exploitation", 42% were white, 14% were defined as Asian or Asian British and 17% black."

The percentage of white people in the UK is 82%. So I don’t see how you are seeing an urban myth here.

In care isn't like prison. They are allowed out like normal kids.

Reality outside of secure care there's feck all can be done to stop people in care from doing their own thing.

Fwiw the group in question in the article are all native white Irish

Allowed out at what times?

And who is allowing them out? Surley the care institution has a duty of care towards children placed with them. How could they reasonably consider it to be safe to let them out of the institution's grounds unsupervised at all hours? Especially considering that they are already in highly vulnerable states, hence their need to be in the institutional care system.

Another clanger by Tusla. I wouldn't let them mind my cat.

They should not be allowed out of the care institution unsupervised if they are under 18.

Yep, from the laundries to the work houses to the borstals, the use of vulnerable children as sexual currency has existed since the foundation of the state. It's a disgrace, but not a new one.

How can they just run away from an institution? Surely if it is a Tusla managed institution for the care of minors, they have a duty of care to ensure that their residents are kept safe and they ought to know that some teenagers are a flight risk. Therefore they ought to make sure that their facilities are properly secure and any comings and goings are known about, and supervised.

That's called prison.

Reading the article there about how taxis are turning up and care homes and taking girls away to hotels. I mean jesus, how can those in charge of the institutions allow this to take place. Is there no security at all? How can you be running an institution for vulnerable teenagers, and then just buzz a a random unannounced taxi in through the main gates and let them go away out the gate again with a teenager no questions asked.

Its crazy. It makes me thing that the someone in the instititions is in on it.

How can it be allowed happen that a car load of men turn up at a care home and go away out the gate with a 16 year old, every night of the week, and no-one in authority, be they a senior manager or the person at reception or the gate hut, thinks to say "what is going on? that is not right that cannot happen it must stop".

Event the hotels ought to be considered complicit. How can any normal person see a taxi pull up with random old males and a vulnerable teenage girl late and night and not suspect something dodgy is afoot?

And how can a taxi driver turn up to a home with a bunch of random men and think nothing is strange when they pick up a teenage girl and go to a hotel late at night?

Every participant who failed to notice, turned a blind eye or facilitated this sort of thing ought to be found guilty of being peadofiles or accomplices. Home management, gate security staff, taxi drivers, everyone who saw and did nothing at every step of the way ought to be investigated.

What's the take away message that you are suggesting the writer is trying to give us?

That Tuslsa is secretly controlled and run by peadaphiles?

Then you're talking about detaining them. Whether you like it or not that's how the system is.

Remember this, there are 6000 children in care, only 4-500 are in state care. The ones in the article would be to the extreme end in terms of behaviour.

The other side is it costs an ave of 300 grand to keep a kid in the care system. Most of the kids in care are in private/charitable services as well.

Not excusing what's going on, but the reality the system is not designed to stop kids from leaving their centre, and the staff are not allowed or trained to prevent them.

But are the ones in houses not just foster homes? I thought that in direct state care meant that they'd be housed in a residential institution run directly by Tuslsa or the HSE.

Still, there should be some sort of security there to control comings and goings.. if Tuslsa are aware that this carry on is happening then they have a duty of care to prevent it and that basically meant putting in security measures. And it's not too control the kids as such, it's for their own good to prevent peadaphiles from getting to them.

You could say that security is as much if not more about keep peadaphiles out than keeping children in.

Most peados are Irish born and raised. But not all. But there is the worry that the ones that operate as organised gangs could be shall we say o trasns na dtonnta as was the case in the Yorkshire thing.

That is, aside from the Catholic church which was by far the biggest most prolific organised peadaphile ring in Irish history

No, foster care is just that, overwhelming majority of kids are in this area.

The other area is residential, these are homes for 1-4 kids. Most are run by private or charitable organisations. They are meant to be as close to a normal home as possible. No security, just care staff.

In these houses children can be allowed come and go like at home. Some will have different curfews of have limits on how long they can go out for. But there is nothing to stop them running away/absconding. Staff have less rights than parents have in how to control the children.

Then you have secure/special care. These are run and staffed by Tusla, like mini prisons, security locked doors and that. There are 3 (I think) with 17? beds. After that you have oberstown.

Most kids who run away to meet adults are meeting people they already know. The article naturally went for the most sensational stories. These kids are coming from often horrendous backgrounds and the only relationship they might have is with an abuser/dealer so they want to go back to what they know.

Before anyone criticises the system which is not fit for purpose go work in residential care to see what the reality is really like.

Because its always the state's fault. Ultimately they're in the care of the state even if the state has abidicated responsibility to the private sector. The care sector runs on rules and regulations set by the state.

We put kids in care but don't put enough resources into getting them the help they need.

We take kids out of a family but then don't do anything to fix the reason they were removed in the first place.when the kid turns 18 they are sent home to where they were deemed to be so at risk they had to be removed.

There are kids in care who were born to parents who were in care themselves.

As bad as Tusla are, and they are bad, they're trying to undo 30 years of disjointed and haphazard work.

By we I mean the state.

Read the article, nothing to suggest it's people from the group you named.

At least one of the cases referenced the males were all white Irish as it's fairly well known about in the care sector.

The majority of those involved in the exploitation of children in care are already known to them, either as family, friends of family, or as their dealer/pimp.

Why does this have to be about race/religion/skin colour? Or is the exploitation of children only an issue when it's done by people from a specific group

England is not Ireland. Right now the overwhelming majority of kids being abused in Ireland are being abused by members of their family. Look at the biggest child abuse scandals in recent years and it's evident that we have plenty of homegrown child abusers.

I've worked in the sector for years so am well aware of what the reality is. Despite that article there is no evidence of any mass cover up of child abuse. Report after report shows the levels.

Both your posts only focus on abuse perpetrated by people of a certain religion or skin colour. You don't seem at all concerned about the risk of the abusers being white.