How Family Breakdown Fuels Child Exploitation

Elon Musk did the world a service by bringing the U.K.’s darkest crimes to light. The “grooming gangs” scandal, which took place over decades in our poorest, post-industrial towns, should never be forgotten, especially since many perpetrators still have not been brought to justice. Various authorities failed to investigate the crimes out of fear of being branded racist or Islamophobic, a symptom of Britain’s performative commitment to diversity and multiculturalism. Unchecked immigration was almost certainly a contributing factor, as was rampant poverty. 

Another contributing factor—the taboo no one wants to talk about—is the prevalence of broken families. The victims came overwhelmingly from broken homes, making them vulnerable to predators. Some of them had mothers and fathers who fought valiantly to save them—but many didn’t. Isolation is critical to grooming. 

Fiona Goddard didn’t have any parents looking out for her. In 2008, she lived in a children’s home as a ward of the state in Bradford. The authorities tasked with caring for her stayed silent and watched as Saeed Akhtar, her forty-five-year-old “boyfriend,” would repeatedly pick her up in a taxi and take her to his flat. There, Akhtar and his gang of friends used her as a drug mule and a prostitute. She was fourteen years old.  

Nearly half of all children in Britain today grow up outside a traditional family structure. Over 2.5 million children don’t have a father in their home. Those who grow up in a single-parent or broken family are three to six times more likely to suffer serious abuse. Teenagers raised by lone parents are 66 percent more likely to be sexually active than their peers. For teenagers whose parents are remarried or with new partners, that statistic rises to 90 percent.   

Our culture is quick to recognize “white privilege,” “straight privilege,” and various other intersectional grievances. But very few social justice warriors care to raise awareness of “intact-family privilege”—despite study after study showing the remarkable advantages that a stable family structure can award a child. Children raised by married parents are more likely to attend university. They’re physically and emotionally healthier. They’re less likely to use drugs and alcohol. And critically, they’re less likely to experience physical or sexual abuse, or become pregnant as a teen.  

For decades, politicians have feared promoting marriage and family policies lest they be mocked for their “Victorian” approach to morality. Even under fourteen years of “Conservative” party rule, the U.K. government only served to dismantle family units by legalizing “no-fault divorce,” rather than encouraging parents to stay together, which is statistically the best thing for children—and, consequently, the country’s future. A laissez-faire approach to family and commitment has aggravated our sexual liberalism by disconnecting sex from procreation. 

Fear of “judging” sexual practices tore down another safeguard for vulnerable girls. Why did sexual health clinics not sound the alarm when thousands of children—under the legal age of consent—started demanding contraceptives, abortions, and treatments for sexually-transmitted diseases? A government-led drive in the early 2000s to halve the rate of teen pregnancy gave children access to contraceptives via discreet and “non-judgmental” staff, rather than preventing their engagement in sex altogether. Unlike other European countries, British staff aren’t required to alert parents when their child seeks such services. 

An entrenched belief that “teens will be teens” failed the victims of grooming gangs. A report on the abuse scandals in Rochdale, uncovered between 2010 and 2015, found that “the drive to reduce teenage pregnancy . . . is believed to have contributed to a culture whereby professionals may have become inured to early sexual activity in young teenagers.” Authorities were desensitized to the horrific sexualization of our girls. When Goddard alerted the police and the authorities at her children’s home that she had been raped, she was told that it was a result of her “lifestyle choice” and that she should “deal with it.” 

The dismantling of the family has discarded the role of mothers and fathers, who in the current framework are first and foremost individuals on a journey of self-actualization rather than caregivers. Children are not allowed to be children in need of guidance and must be “empowered” to take on the responsibility—and sexuality—of adults. Meanwhile, we say and do nothing about the trend of fathers failing in their responsibility to protect and support their daughters, and mothers living with a revolving door of boyfriends. Without breaking the taboo on the harms of sex outside of marriage, which leads to broken families, we’ll never be able to protect Britain’s children.