Where are Me Too and the Feminists?

The #MeToo movement transformed the conversation around sexual violence. It gave a voice to countless survivors of harassment and assault, challenged the power structures that protected celebrity predators, and created a renewed global reckoning with male impunity.

Yet, in the UK, a horrifying form of systemic sexual violence has consistently remained on the periphery of this national conversation: Organised Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) networks, often referred to as 'rape gangs.'

For victims—predominantly vulnerable, young White British girls—whose suffering was enabled by years of institutional indifference and, crucially, a fear of being labelled racist, the loud advocacy of the mainstream feminist and #MeToo movements has been conspicuously quiet. This silence represents a critical gap in intersectional feminist principles and a profound failure to advocate for some of the most marginalized victims in the country.

1. The Scale of the Crisis is Not a Secret

This is not a conspiracy theory; it is a documented, national tragedy. The facts are enshrined in official, non-partisan reports commissioned by the UK government:

• Rotherham (Jay Report, 2014): Found that at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town between 1997 and 2013, with authorities failing to act on widespread reports.

• Rochdale, Telford, Oxford, and others: These were not anomalies. They are part of a nationwide pattern of systemic, long-term grooming, brutal violence, and trafficking perpetrated by organised groups of men.

• Victim Profile: The survivors of this abuse are often the most vulnerable people in society: children in local authority care, those from socio-economically disadvantaged homes, and those already suffering from prior trauma.

The sheer scale, the systemic nature, and the state-level cover-up make these cases arguably the single greatest failure of child protection and justice in modern British history. They should be a feminist priority.

2. The Institutional Failure: Fear Over Protection

The single most damning revelation across multiple inquiries (Jay, Casey) was the mechanism that allowed the abuse to continue: misplaced fear and political cowardice.

The reports found that police officers, social workers, and council leaders were aware of the abuse but actively failed to act due to an unhealthy culture and a "fear of being thought racist" if they targeted groups whose perpetrators were predominantly of Pakistani-British heritage.

The argument that institutional fear of being labelled racist was used to justify the systemic failure to protect vulnerable children is not a right-wing narrative; it is an official finding of the state.

This institutional cover-up demonstrates a profound moral and ethical collapse. But it raises an unavoidable question for activists: If state agencies failed to act out of a fear of "the racism smear," has the mainstream activist response been chilled by the exact same political sensitivity?

3. The #MeToo Disconnect

The #MeToo movement’s strength lies in its ability to expose how male power operates to silence women. Yet, in the UK, the focus has often been on the abuses of high-status, often white, celebrity and political men—abuses that occurred in workplaces, universities, and political corridors.

• The Contrast: Where are the massive, well-funded, and sustained feminist campaigns demanding justice for the thousands of working-class girls failed by the state in places like Rotherham, as opposed to the campaigns focused on a single-perpetrator celebrity case?

• The Principle of Intersectionality: Intersectionality demands that the movements focus their energy on those who sit at the intersection of multiple vulnerabilities—age, class, and being in the care system. The survivors of the CSE gangs are precisely this group. If intersectionality is to be more than a theoretical buzzword, it must prioritise the most victimised, irrespective of the perpetrator’s background.

• The Challenge: When the political risk of speaking out is high—when the perpetrators belong to a minority group and the fear of being weaponised by the 'so called far-right' the mainstream movement seems to have opted for a collective silence, effectively choosing political comfort over the protection of the most brutalized children.

A feminism that is selective about which victims it champions is not a feminism of liberation; it is a feminism of political expediency.

4. Reclaiming the Voice: A Call to Action

1. Unflinching Advocacy: We must vocally and relentlessly advocate for the survivors and demand systemic change, independent of the perpetrator’s background. Male violence is male violence.

2. Focus on the Institutions: The primary focus must remain on the catastrophic failure of the UK state—the police, councils, and social services—whose institutional racism (prioritising perceived minority interests over victim safety) allowed the abuse to thrive.

3. Support for Survivors: The focus must shift to adequate, non-politicised, and long-term legal and therapeutic support for the thousands of survivors who are still living with the trauma, many of whom were treated as criminals by the very authorities meant to protect them.

It is time for UK feminists and #MeToo advocates to look past the political risk, embrace the uncomfortable truth, and ensure that the most neglected victims of sexual violence are finally heard, believed, and protected.