A number of adult survivors of CSE who attend Swinton Lock are determined to do everything they possibly can to help re-unite communities in Rotherham and to act strongly and proactively against racism and any form of “them and us” http://real2.org/it-turned-me-towards-the-edl-voices-of-despair-voices-of-hope/ It turned me towards the EDL By an ex-steel worker and uncle of a child who was sexually exploited. I am the uncle of a young girl who was sexually exploited in Rotherham. When they talk about who was abused they rarely include the abuse of the wider family. The mams, dads, sisters, brothers, nans and granddads, aunties and uncles, cousins and friends All of them that gets abused as well. It's a living hell to learn about one of your own being abused like that and being tortured and terrified by gangs of men. Don't get me wrong when I say this, but I never thought a Pakistani bloke would do what they did to our little lass. Twelve years of age she were when it started. I used to work with them see, Pakistani men in the steel works, never had a problem with them or them with me and my mates. Co-workers we were, working in tough and rough conditions. They were just there, eking a living like us, to feed and clothe their kids. Trying to keep a roof over their families heads like us. They were Rotherham people like us, that's how I saw them. Then on hearing about my sister’s little lass, something snapped in me. I went down to the taxi rank to see if I could get hold of the ones who did it to her. I told two what had happened and I got them giving me lip, saying to me she must have been gagging for it and making remarks about her being “a Gora Slag” (White Slag). That was it. I saw red and my missus had to drag me off them with my two older sons. I could have throttled them there and then. I wouldn't have thought anything of it. I would have been happy to do them in. I'm not a fighting man, never have been but to hear them, them bastards say that about my niece or any little girl sent me over the edge. As I was leaving the taxi area near to the square, an older bloke came over to me and said to me Hello. I was that mad I didn't lift my head. I just brushed passed him, not in a nasty way mind but just rushed like. My wife said afterwards it were a bloke I'd worked with at the furnace with me dad and I had been rude to him, an older man. After this I kept ruminating on the racism about our little lass from those taxi lads and about them calling her a slag. No one was sticking up for these kids in the Council or anywhere. Then I heard the EDL speaking out and I heard they were coming to Rotherham to protest against what had been happening and likely still happening now to these little girls. So I went to the demonstration. Standing on the edges like, watching. They were ranting at the Council and police about the kids. It was like a window opening for me. I tuned into that and blocked out the prejudice stuff they were saying. When they came again I went again. This time it was hardcore racists, skin heads, National Front and the like. They were going over the top, picking on people who were different to them. As I was coming away from the protest early I saw a couple of bovver type lads abusing a couple of young Pakistan kids. I told them to stop and they turned on me calling me a Pakistan lover. Saying I was probably a paedophile too and that was why I was sticking up for them, they said to me. It was at that point I came to my senses and got back to being myself again. You see, I saw that there are racists and dick heads in every community. I thought of Jimmy Savile and about him being reported to have done things in sexual predator rings too. It was a crime that could be committed in every community and by all sorts of different people. I realised that I had turned dick head too. Thank God only for a short while I hasten to add, but none the less I am ashamed of it. I see now I went to the demos because the EDL seemed to listen to see our little girl’s plight, when others seemed not to care. But they played on this and put in their own breed of racism towards Muslims, Asian people and migrants. I was uncomfortable and felt it was wrong and I pulled back. I do believe that the bastards who did these things to my niece were motivated not only by perverted sexual motives but by the fact that most of the girls, not all mind, but most were white and they looked down on our lasses in their twisted way. As if our lasses were there to be exploited and were up for it just because they are white and western. It was the answer I got at the taxi rank that day when I went for them. I went back to where I knew the older man lived once I got my head straight. I found the older man I had brushed aside. You see it played on my mind, it did, that I had been rude to him. We were never brought up that way you see. When I saw him I was a bit shy. He pulled me to him and gave me a bear hug. I apologised and he apologised to me. The Jay Report had come out and he said to me how ashamed he felt that some of his people had harmed our children like that. He spoke about his generation - my dad's generation and how they had worked together with white workers, British, Irish, Czechs. Smelting at Tinsley Wire and other steel works for decades and the respect they had for each other. How what had occurred would never have happened then in them days, as respect for each other was always there no matter the differences and how everyone looked out for everyone else. My niece was terrified of Asian people after what happened to her. Mr Khan, the older man has helped her and us. He's been doing it gentle like, coming on occasions to see her mam with me there. At first she would not come into the room, but bit by bit she came nearer. Then his story telling drew her in and she sits on the floor on a cushion near his knee. I can't begin to tell you how moved I were when she first got her cushion and put it there. As he talked he brushed her hair with his big worn out hands, worn out from hammering the steel like. She never budged. He talks to her about life, how there are good and bad people in different communities and how people cannot let bad people keep on harming you by stopping you growing and laughing and living. He does it through stories but his way of telling puts things right. He brought our little lass a heart the other day, a heart that says Love Comes First, got it from town for her. It hangs on her window catching the light . She gets her moments of crying and weeping our little lass, but she gets stronger every day. We all do. Spewing Racism Towards Me Too! "Racism wasn't just used against White girls, there was racism towards others too. I am a Black African Caribbean-Mixed Race English girl and I was called a ‘Black b..ch’, during a sexual, assault."