Teenager Reveals Abuse by Yorkshire Gang
At age 13, Lubna (not her real name), met a gang of men at a local shisha bar who she befriended. Some of them lying about their ages, the men plied the teenager with alcohol and drugs, including cannabis.
Unaware of what was happening to her she felt isolated and thought they “cared about her”.
“They asked me to wear clothes that would show my figure and different parts of my body,” said Lubna, their requests contradicting her religious beliefs as a Muslim. However Lubna feared for her family’s life if she tried to escape, “I thought they might come to my home and break the windows – even kill someone.”
Feeling “worthless”, Lubna began to self harm, “I was punching walls. Then I found a knife in the kitchen drawer and cut my arms. I thought the pain felt good,” she said.
After two overdoses and being admitted to the hospital, Lubna’s father Mushtaq took action. He discovered many young men were friends with her on Facebook, they would often collect her from home in their cars. He confiscated her phone stating, “I went through it speaking to all her male contacts to find out who they were.”
Campaigners argue that Asian victims of sexual abuse are often coerced into remaining silent to protect family ‘honour’. It is reportedly a nationwide problem that is vastly under-reported.
Founding member of Karma Nirvana, Jaswinder Sanghera, helps women and men who are subjected to “honour-based abuse”. She says, “Asian women are deliberately targeted because men know they won’t come forward [to complain]. So they can be exploited and abused.”
Sheffield City Council revealed that 20% of the referrals they dealt with in 2013 came from young people from BME (black and minority ethnic) backgrounds.
Sue Fiennes of Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board told the BBC, “We are engaging with the community about the issues and we offer intensive support to victims of CSE [child sexual exploitation] regardless of their race and ethnicity.”
Lubna’s father agreed there was a taboo surrounding the sexual abuse and believes the community should do more to help rather than “brush it under the carpet”.
“There’s nothing in our religion that says you can’t speak out about a crime,” he said.
Lubna is getting her life back again thanks to her father by undergoing counselling and returning to college. She offered advice to other victims, “I would tell other teenagers to listen to their parents because they know best.”
No one has been prosecuted so far.
