I’ve sat with this since the news about the collapse of the grooming gangs enquiry started to break and the later news about royal family emails and other revelations.
I’ve sat with this as I’ve listened to politicians and influential people discuss the world of grooming and exploitation, a world they’ve never known.
I’ve sat with this as I’ve read countless comments from an enthralled public, mostly blaming the survivors.
I’ve sat with this as a survivor of grooming rings, abuse and organised sexual exploitation and violence in my childhood and as an adult.
I’ve sat with this as an observer of the unfolding game. A game where the rings, gangs, perpetrators and abusers still have the upper hand. Still have the public’s shock to manipulate, still have people’s avoidance responses to mould to their advantage.
The grooming gangs inquiry has collapsed into a mess of deliberate blaming and deflection. The reasons given for no enquiry being extended to or held in Scotland are at the least dismissive to survivors and ignoring reality. The coverage of the royal family situation and any links to the elite grooming rings is accusatory but the wrong people.
Are survivors just pawns in a bigger game?
Is the avoidance of progress or accountability deliberate?
Can the damage done to survivors remaining trust in the system be repaired?
Why are people so scared of seeing what’s right in front of them?
How can those with influence over protection possibly understand a world they’ve never known without hearing those who lived in it?
How can survivors ever feel safe or supported in coming forward when their is no accountability shown, no respect and no justice?
As a survivor observing the news, part of me is too tired to play the game anymore. It’s just the same thing on repeat. Avoidance, deflection, deliberate chaos, fake concern, no charges, scapegoats, flimsy offerings of justice and back to avoidance.
As a survivor who is step by step speaking out with hope of raising authentic awareness through truth, in order to aid prevention and increase visibility, to add insight to protection, I see the maze in front of me. The game I’m supposed to play.
Choice was removed from me for decades. I take it back. I recognise the game though I don’t know the rules. The only rules I can make are my own. I will speak up and state my truth. Tell my story. Use my experience and pain to protect others but I can only do that if systems, organisations and individuals help survivors to rewrite the rules, to end the game.
Enquiries
People have risked their safety, security to speak up. Professionals and survivors. People have put their careers and image on the line in order to show what has happened and what is still happening. People have been targeted, ignored, challenged and intimidated for exposing truths and gaps.
Survivors have been used as pawns. Exploited and rejected. The public has been denied information and awareness.
In my opinion there needs to be a Scottish enquiry or the UK one extended to cover Scotland.
The enquiries moving forward need to cover different forms of grooming rings reflecting honestly their communities and environments. So none are ignored or forgotten.
All enquiries need to be survivor based and informed.
There should be a community aspect to the follow ups of enquiries. So that insight and recommendations are shared and activated on a local basis across the country.
A judge needs to head the inquiry not people from the organisations implicated. The judicial system needs to hold hearings and manage the process. Testimony and evidence handled by legal experts.
Survivor panels are required at all stages, from hearings and testimony through to what is learned and the insights gained and recommendations made, through to the community based responses. Their knowledge and expertise is crucial to understanding how grooming happens, how grooming gangs and rings operate, what the public need to know in order to protect each other.
Their knowledge must be integrated not just heard.
Conversations happening while enquiries are in the news need to continue at other times and be sustained.
Safety and support for survivors needs to be increased and trauma informed
Royal issues
The avoidance of answers and accountability needs to be highlighted.
An understanding of what justice means, what it looks like to survivors needs to be considered and enabled.
Those knowingly enabling exploitation and abuse need to seen as complicit.
Conversations surrounding victim blaming need to be held. Holding the media to account.
People suspected of being part of grooming, abuse, exploitation need to be investigated fully, regardless of their class, income, image or status.
I was seen by myself and those exploiting me to have been “on the game” from aged 15. I was conditioned to trading myself for my understanding of safety from a much earlier age. I lived in that game until I was 40 years old.
I see the patterns, the players in the discussions
and systems playing out in the news around us.
I see the grooming of public responses and understanding. I see the deflection, avoidance and blaming. The conditioning of blame.
I see hope. I see people and organisations working authentically to protect, prevent harm, empower and support. I see people actively listening, trying to understand. I see some systems seeking accountability and transparency. I see gaps in care and safeguarding being addressed. I see a new game being created, one where the survivors, the children, the protectors have the upper hand.