Sir Keir Starmer overlooks Misogyny in Grooming Gangs Debate

Sir Keir Starmer has come under fire for his handling of the grooming gangs scandal.

Calls for a Home Office-led inquiry into the matter, which largely involved Pakistani heritage men, were rejected.

And while the Prime Minister is facing criticism, he has failed to spot the underlying misogyny that is rife in Pakistani Muslim families.

Activist Khadija Khan highlighted this with her own experience of growing up in Pakistan.

She explained that her brother was the only boy among four siblings. He was given better clothes and received larger portions of food.

Meanwhile, instructions and punishments were handed to the sisters.

This highlights the clear inequality between men and women, and it starts off in the home.

According to Khadija, the role of a good Muslim woman was in the home, raising children and serving her husband.

This is never questioned because women face strict consequences, ranging from being disowned to murdered, all in the name of “honour”.

In such households, Western women are perceived as immoral and promiscuous, something Khadija learned growing up.

But when she moved to Germany, and later the UK, she quickly learned “all my deeply held ideas about Western women were far from true”.

Khadija also realised the “patriarchal religion in which I had been raised was wholly incompatible with women’s rights”.

These regressive attitudes have since died down in Pakistan.

But worryingly, it now exists across the UK in Pakistani Muslim households and it is this misogynistic mindset that enabled the sexual abuse by grooming gangs.

The same attitudes underpin the cruelties within sections of the conservative Pakistani community itself, where many vulnerable young girls and women suffer under “traditional values”.

For years, police and social workers have turned a blind eye, preferring to allow communities rife with misogyny to run themselves rather than offend religious and cultural “sensitivities”.

And as the grooming gang scandal row rages on, it appears that politicians remain keen to deny reality.

Jess Phillips’ refusal to agree to an independent inquiry into Pakistani child sexual exploitation in Oldham suggests that this is the case.

On January 6, 2025, Sir Keir Starmer caused anger when he appeared to hit out at those who criticised his prosecution record rather than the paedophile rape gangs.

He even suggested that those who have highlighted this crime were jumping on a “far-Right bandwagon”.

Defending his time as Director of Public Prosecutions during the unfolding scandal, the Prime Minister insisted he had “changed the whole prosecution approach” to grooming victims and “challenged the myths and stereotypes that were stopping those victims being heard”.

Speaking to GB News, Khadija Khan accused the PM of “silencing the whole debate” on grooming gangs after the PM accused senior Tories of “amplifying what the far-right is saying”.

She said:

“There is this assumption that we can’t speak about these issues because they offend the Pakistani community.”

“It’s not a conspiracy or ‘far right’ to say that Pakistani men are disproportionately involved. It’s something that’s a fact.

“There should be no shame in dealing with facts because it’s impacting people inside and outside the community.”

I spoke to @silvereliana_ from @GBNEWS regarding Keir Starmer’s remarks on the grooming gang scandal.

Between Islamophobia& far-right accusations, the victims of grooming gangs are once again being denied justice. The discussion has veered off course.https://t.co/fIwhGohPZf

— Khadija Khan (@KhadijaKhan__) January 7, 2025

While his protestations are self-serving, his Labour government appear unwilling to confront misogyny and sexual exploitation in certain sections of British Muslim communities.

It is more disappointing when you consider the moral courage displayed by others who have spoken out despite the risks to their reputation.

Among them is Nazir Afzal, a lawyer and former chief executive of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, who campaigned to bring the Rochdale grooming gang to justice, and who went on to write a passionate article in The Mail on Sunday in 2017 in which he urged the authorities to”‘challenge a misogynistic culture that’s getting out of control and … talk about the predators in our community”.

However, this intervention led to the Society of Asian Lawyers disinviting Afzal from giving an address at its annual gala.

As a committee member said in an email, concerns had been raised about whether his keynote speech may “cause offence”.

In failing to address the deeper roots of misogyny underpinning grooming gangs, Sir Keir Starmer misses an opportunity to lead a more nuanced and effective conversation on this pressing issue.

Tackling grooming gangs is not merely about law enforcement or community relations; it requires confronting the toxic attitudes toward women that enable such exploitation to thrive.

Without recognising misogyny as a core driver of these crimes, any proposed solutions risk being superficial and incomplete.

True leadership demands acknowledging and addressing this uncomfortable truth—not just to hold perpetrators accountable, but to create a society where such abuses have no fertile ground to grow.