Rochdale, a former working-class satellite town of Manchester in the north-west of England, is now a city infamous for its "child sex abuse ring." In the early 2000s, dozens of mature men, mostly British of Pakistani origin, raped underage girls (most of them White). Coming from very modest backgrounds, these teenage girls were offered food and alcohol, then threatened and raped by dozens of men.

For years, local authorities and the police turned a blind eye to these young girls' ordeal, until whistleblowers such as Sara Rowbotham, a former employee of the local health service, and Maggie Oliver, a former police inspector, finally brought these heinous crimes to light in the early 2010s.

On January 15, an independent report commissioned by the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham (Labor Party), condemned the extent of the failings of local officials and the Greater Manchester Police, who refused to take into account the testimony of victims and left them "at the mercy of their abusers" over the period from 2004 to 2013. Of the 74 Rochdale teenagers reported by council services as likely to have been sexually exploited by this pedophile ring, only three were "properly looked after" by social services. In addition, "at least" 96 individuals representing "a potential risk to minors" have not been worried or even questioned by the police.

Sexual health specialist Sara Rowbotham was working in the NHS Emergency Response Unit when she began to raise the alarm about possible assaults on young girls in the mid-2000s. Despite dozens of reports between 2005 and 2011, her superiors turned a deaf ear. In 2008, one of the victims (the law forbids naming them to protect their anonymity) reported the incidents to the police, who opened an investigation. However, no action was taken on this report, as the young girl's word was not considered "reliable," and there was insufficient evidence of the abuse.

The investigation was not reopened until 2010, and two years later, nine men were convicted of rape and sex trafficking. Today, dozens of victims are still waiting for justice. At the time, Greater Manchester Police highest-ranking officers welcomed a "fantastic result" for British justice, but the January-15 report deplores the fact that many victims' accounts of dozens of other possible criminals were ignored by the police.

Moreover, nothing was done to protect these teenagers from further violence or to provide them with material and moral support. Lack of resources allocated to the investigators, prejudices concerning the girls' credibility (they were aged between 13 and 15), and their social background: One of them was even, without her knowledge, treated by the investigators as an "accomplice" of the pedophile criminals, insofar as she helped them recruit other teenagers, even though she was under their influence. Other victims were treated as prostitutes by the social services.

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