By Selwyn Duke

Imagine you’re an 11-year-old working-class girl. Like so many children in this troubled world, maybe you don’t get the attention you crave at home. Or perhaps you’re just a normal early adolescent yearning to feel like an adult. So along comes a boy, older than you are but still a lad, who takes an interest in you. He makes romantic overtures, showering you with gifts and sweet-talking you. You’re flattered by his attention and intrigued by his exoticism; he’s a Muslim, a “foreigner” — just the kind of status the multiculturalism you’ve imbibed tells you is superior. And the boy uses manipulation. “What, you don’t like Pakistanis?” he might say. “You’re not a racist, are you? Is it that your parents wouldn’t let you date a Muslim? Aren’t you grown up enough to make your own decisions?”

And you do decide — to make him your “boyfriend.” You bond with him; you feel love for him. But then something happens: He introduces you to drugs and alcohol. He then pressures you into having relations with his family. His friends come next. And then, as the descent continues and the mask comes off fully, you’re being raped and pimped out for money, sometimes abused, tortured, and terrified into submission. And the threats are substantial. You may be told that, should you talk, your mother will be raped. Or your brother killed. Or your house burned down.

                                                        Groomed to Doomed