WHITE GIRLS’ SACRIFICE
WHITE GIRLS’ SACRIFICE By Poppy Coburn GROOMING GANGS: A STATE WITHIN THE UK STATE In 2017, the BBC premiered a three-part mini-series entitled Three Girls . The program was centred around the Rochdale grooming gangs, dramatising the abuse and subsequent court case from the perspective of three underage victims. Perhaps even more harrowing than the depiction of sexual violence was the institutional unwillingness of the police and the local council to grapple with the scale of the organised child abuse. The drama was showered in accolades: the three young actresses portrayed the agony of the abused children with skill and sensitivity, and the decision to show on-screen sexually violent acts hammered home the horror of the Rochdale scandal. I found myself both horrified and relieved — horrified that such a miscarriage of justice had been allowed to happen, yet relieved that the national attention the incidents had received would prevent such repugnant crimes from happening again. The