It seems nowadays that not a day passes in the UK when an issue related to child sex abuse or exploitation doesn’t hit the news. Just this past week, three major stories dominated the headlines – firstly, a report by MP Ann Coffey found that the sexual exploitation of vulnerable children has become the social norm in some parts of Greater Manchester, with over 13,000 cases over the last 6 years; secondly, Fiona Wolf, the woman appointed to chair the inquiry into claims of a historical paedophile ring operating amongst former MP’s, government ministers, and others in the higher echelons of British society, was forced to resign due to her political links with the establishment; and thirdly, a young junior doctor working in paediatrics pleaded guilty of sexually abusing boys as young as 12 and was found in possession of more than 1.2 million images of abuse.

In recent years, the UK media has been awash with stories on the same subject – from cases of high profile media personalities such as Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, and Stuart Hall who used their fame to abuse children, to the historical allegations of abuse in specialist music schools and children’s homes in North Wales. Other than that, there are news of paedophile grooming rings operating in towns such as Rochdale, Derby, Oxford and Rotherham to admissions by the head of the National Crime Agency that the number of paedophiles in the UK downloading explicit pictures of children is so high (estimated 50,000) that they will not be able to prosecute them all.

This is a vile crime that turns the stomach and makes the blood boil. Understandably therefore, there has been a public outcry over these stories and condemnatory statements from those in power. Unfortunately however, levels of fury and disgust have not been matched by a comparable level of seriousness amongst media and politicians alike to genuinely examine the root causes of child sex abuse. There has been a paucity of debate on the issue. Attention so far has focussed on the failure of the police, social services, and other public bodies to investigate these crimes, protect victims, and deal effectively with perpetrators. Indeed, these failings need to be put under the spotlight of public scrutiny, for they reflect a deficiency in regard and care for the wellbeing of children. However, examining the shortcomings of public authorities does not address the question of what drives so many men (and sometimes women) to engage in these perverted, grotesque acts. Nor does it explain why the scale of child sex abuse in the country is so shockingly high. Indeed its prevalence is of epidemic proportions. According to the child protection charity, the NSPCC, in 2012/2013 there were 23,663 sexual offences against children recorded by the police in the UK. The charity also states that 1 in 20 children in the country have been sexually abused. Earlier this year, 660 suspected paedophiles were arrested during a 6-month police operation. They included teachers, care workers, doctors and former police officers.

Many view paedophilia as simply acts performed by perverted, evil individuals, some of whom may have been abused themselves as a child. Some academics describe it as possibly a form of mental illness or sociopathic tendencies suffered by those individuals. There is even a growing trend of sociologists who describe such repugnant lusts towards children as perhaps a form of sexual orientation – i.e. that the brains of paedophiles are just ‘wired differently’ to others. Two eminent researchers, for example, testified to this latter view to a Canadian parliamentary commission on the issue last year. The Harvard Mental Health letter of July 2010 also suggested that paedophilia, “is a sexual orientation”. During a high profile UK conference last year, held by the University of Cambridge, one academic disturbingly stated in his presentation that, “Paedophilia interest is natural and normal for human males,” and that a sizable minority of normal males would like to engage in these acts.

Focusing the cause for this heinous crime on the brains and preferences of perverted individuals is the easy route out often used by secular states to wash their hands of the culpability of the values of their society in fuelling this abhorrent behaviour. It’s more politically convenient to claim that most paedophiles are born rather than made, even though the epidemic and growing numbers of those engaging in these acts contradicts this belief. It’s much easier to lay the blame on ‘evil, sick men’, than to hold up a mirror to the liberal principles celebrated by the state and to take a long, hard look at the fall-out of these ideas upon society. This is because these approaches to understanding this crime allows individuals and societies to detach themselves from the uncomfortable idea that just maybe, the liberal way of life they embrace, has a part to play in encouraging these perverted acts. It provides them with justification that it’s OK to continue to enjoy sexual freedom because the abuse of children is all about ‘sick individuals’ and nothing to do with these values. It enables politicians and proponents of liberalism to divert attention from the inherent flaws and dangers of their ideology which they so readily serve to the world as the path to create civilized, modern nations.

However, sincerely addressing this problem of paedophilia requires the converse. It necessitates soul-searching questions about how and why states have reached this point in modern-day life. It requires acknowledgement about what liberal values in reality have licensed people to do, and the detrimental impact of this upon societies. For one, sexual freedom has encouraged individuals to fulfil their sexual desires as they wish and hence has sanctioned the creation of a hyper-sexualized environment. Street billboards, films, books, magazines, TV shows and adverts constantly bombard individuals with provocative and explicit images. Additionally, there is unhindered access to the same material through internet websites and the pornography industry. All this inevitably has had a negative and dangerous affect on the mindset and behaviour of people, fuelling sexual crimes against adults and children alike. This is hardly surprising. When you saturate minds with such explicit ideas and imagery and constantly provoke people’s desires, it is inevitable that many will overstep the limits of the law and social norms to fulfil their instincts. For example, the report on child exploitation in Greater Manchester, covered this week in the media read, “Normalisation of quasi-pornographic images…has given rise to new social norms and changed expectations of sexual entitlement.”

Even children have not been spared from this systematic sexualisation of societies. In 2011, Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of the Mothers’ Union, and author of the “Bailey Review”, commissioned by the government on the commercialisation and sexualisation of children described an increasing “sexualized wallpaper surrounding children”. Everything from children’s clothes, to the songs they listen to, the music videos, films, and teenage dramas they watch, the computer games they play, and the magazines they read are saturated with sexually provocative themes, ideas, or images of scantily clad stars. This is alongside having easy access to pornography which is widely available, whether online or in ‘Lad’s’ magazines which are sold in thousands of shops across the UK. The former Shadow Health Minister, Dianne Abbott stated that the average age of boys accessing pornography has dropped from 11 to 8 years. Amongst the multiple problems that this ‘wallpaper surrounding children’ has caused is the growing trend of ‘sexting’, thus affecting many Western liberal societies. This involves children sending explicit images of themselves to others, which is then sometimes shared by the recipient amongst their peers at school and used as a means of bullying the child who sent it. It is a problem that has reached epidemic proportions. According to a joint survey published last October by the children’s organisation the NSPCC and Childline, 60% of teens have been asked for such texts, half have received them, and 40% had taken them.

Many have suggested that this sexualisation of children and young girls has also softened and desensitized attitudes within society and its authorities such as the police towards abuse. Baroness Butler-Sloss, who chaired the Cleveland Child Abuse Inquiry stated that the over-exposure to inappropriate images is blunting attitudes towards sex attacks on under-16’s, and that there was a danger that under-age girls were no longer seen as victims because of perceptions over the way some children act and dress. This therefore perhaps goes part of the way in explaining why some police forces in the UK have been slow and at times neglectful in effectively responding to allegations of abuse from victims of paedophile grooming rings.

All this has systematically eroded the innocence of children. In fact, it has even caused some children to practice this same abuse on other children. The findings of a report published by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in the UK last November were as sickening as they were disturbing. The report described “shocking” levels of sexual violence being carried out by children against other children in the country, with some victims being as young as 11, while some perpetrators were aged 12 or 13. It reported that levels of sexual violence in parts of the UK is comparable to that seen in war-zones and that the problem was widespread and prevalent in every area of England and every type of neighbourhood – rural and urban, deprived and non-deprived. Girls were being passed around within gangs like toys or used as commodities to ensnare rival gang members. Entitled, “It’s wrong but you get used to it”, the report stated that rape was seen as “normal” and “inevitable” and happened on a “daily basis” in some areas, with many girls who had been victims of such assaults saying that it was part of the inevitability of growing up in their areas and that “there is no point in telling anybody about it”. One girl summed up the situation in one line, “Welcome to our generation”. John Pitts, a researcher for the report stated that, “There was an acceptance or resignation of the brutality of their lives,” also commenting, “These young people are very difficult to get to, but when we did we found sexual violence appeared to be routine and regarded as unexceptional. For many of them this was the wallpaper of their lives.”

Having understood therefore the appalling consequences of the sexualisation of children and society, the pressing question that surely needs to be asked is – why do Western governments choose to ignore it and allow it to continue? Well for one, there is money to be made in it! Even after paying lip service against the increasingly sexualized environment surrounding children from inappropriate images and themes contained in advertising and media content that directly target the young, the UK Prime minister left it to the personal conscience of businesses and the entertainment industry to decide whether they would curb this practice rather than enforce strict regulations and censorship. It’s a decision that undoubtedly is shaped upon profit margins rather than the public good. Additionally, in December 2012, the UK government rejected plans to block internet access to pornography on all computers automatically – presumably because the financial loss to this industry of such plans was just too high a cost to pay. Clearly, for capitalist governments such as the UK, preventing harm to the revenues of companies and billion-dollar industries takes precedence over preventing harm to children. This is only to be expected, for under capitalist systems, safeguarding commercial interests will always override protecting social interests.

However, this toxic wallpaper around children is also allowed to continue due to the sacred nature by which liberal freedoms are viewed within Western liberal states that blinds many to the social chaos they sow. They are seen as ‘untouchable’, ‘off-limits’ from close scrutiny, and ring-fenced from examination. In fact, even questioning them often evokes a reaction as if one is a heretic performing a sacrilegious act. It’s far easier, and less controversial to divert attention regarding child-abuse to poor policing, incompetency of social services, or ineffective local authorities. However, if there is a true desire to shield children from exploitation, abuse, and violence – nothing should be beyond question and scrutiny! Furthermore, a sincere concern towards the wellbeing of children requires an honest look and a sincere debate about the values that shape and dominate societies in which so many of our young have been robbed of their innocence and their right to enjoy safe, protected lives. It necessitates probing questions as to why the prevalence of child abuse has reached such a scale that police and children’s services find it impossible to cope. It also surely merits a genuine study of other ways of life that promote alternative values within a state to protect society and the young.

Islam is often label by the West as backward for being at odds with liberalism and rejecting its ideas of personal and sexual freedom. Its social laws that restrict intimate relations to marriage alone and prohibit the sexualisation of society are often seen as repressive. However, there is nothing modern, progressive, or even liberating about the countless social problems caused by the sexualisation of societies resulting from such freedoms. Islam fully recognizes this as well as the obvious point that for all to enjoy safe and dignified lives, both the triggering and fulfillment of sexual desires must be regulated and directed towards that which brings benefit for society: marriage and maintaining strong family units. They cannot be let loose to create a dangerous environment that wreaks havoc in people’s lives, breaks families and nurtures heinous problems such as pedophilia. Islam’s approach therefore of organizing societies is not one based on securing individual freedoms but rather ensuring a safe, tranquil and morally upright society to ensure the protection of the community which inevitably will safeguard the wellbeing of individuals, including children. Islam’s strict laws and limits that regulate the expression and fulfillment of the sexual instinct contribute to achieving this goal. This Islamic approach to the protection of society is exemplified in the following hadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم as narrated by Al Bukhari,

«مثل المدهن في حدود الله والواقع فيها مثل قوم استهموا سفينة فصار بعضهم في أسفلها وصار بعضهم في أعلاها فكان الذي في أسفلها يمرون بالماء على الذين في أعلاها فتأذوا به فأخذ فأسا فجعل ينقر أسفل السفينة فأتوه فقالوا ما لك قال تأذيتم بي ولا بد لي من الماء فإن أخذوا على يديه أنجوه ونجوا أنفسهم وإن تركوه أهلكوه وأهلكوا أنفسهم»

“The example of the one who stands for the Hudood of Allah and the one who compromises the Hudood of Allah are like the people in a boat, some of whom occupy the upper deck and some occupy the lower deck. Whenever those in the lower deck need water, they have to go to the upper deck to retrieve it. So some of them said, ‘why don’t we make a hole in our deck so we do not harm the people of the upper deck?’ If the people do not stop them, they will all fall and be failures, but if they stop them they will all be saved”

Liberalists claim that when there is no freedom, there is oppression. This is a huge deception, for it is clear to see that it is the promotion of liberal freedoms that has been the source of oppression for so many children. It has stolen from them that which is truly sacred and what should have rightfully been theirs – their innocence!

وَلَوِ ٱتَّبَعَ ٱلۡحَقُّ أَهۡوَآءَهُمۡ لَفَسَدَتِ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٲتُ وَٱلۡأَرۡضُ وَمَن فِيهِنَّ‌ۚ بَلۡ أَتَيۡنَـٰهُم بِذِڪۡرِهِمۡ فَهُمۡ عَن ذِكۡرِهِم مُّعۡرِضُونَ

“If the truth had been in accord with their desires, truly the heavens and the earth and all beings therein would have been in confusion and corruption! Nay we have sent them their Reminder but from their Reminder they now turn away.”

(al-Mu’minun: 71)

Written for The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz

Member of The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir