National Archive for Survivors of Grooming Gangs
Donation protected
No-one knows how many survivors of the grooming gangs there are in the UK; the handful of inquiries held into the national scandal has only skimmed the surface of events. Very few people are aware that boys were also victims of the gangs. Just a handful can name the girls who were murdered.
The result is that thousands of men who took part in the abuse, and those in the authorities who covered for them, are still walking free on Britain's streets, while their victims live in perpetual fear.
The National Archive for the Survivors of the Grooming Gangs aims to change that. We want the survivors' stories to be told - every single one of them.
Justice for the Survivors
The British people don’t need another report full of stats and figures and a few select testimonies hinting at what took place. We need to know everything. We need to hear the stories of each and every survivor, to fully face up to what we’d previously ignored. And then we need to find a way to collectively reckon with what happened.
- Every council officer whose job it was to protect children, and who failed, needs to be held to account.
- Every police officer who told a parent that their daughter had opted for prostitution as a lifestyle choice in her early teens, needs to be held to account.
- Every official who took a bribe to look the other way must be jailed.
- Every politician who covered up the abuse in order to secure the support of the Muslim bloc, must be made to pay reparations.
Our Aims
To record the testimony of every single survivor we can find, to create a historical record of the atrocity that has taken place in our country over the last four decades. Those records will be freely available to the public and to researchers who want to delve into those all important questions – What happened? How did it happen? Why was it allowed to happen? – in more detail.
To bring private prosecutions of police and council officers wherever possible. By building up a full and complete picture of what took place, we can build the evidence base required to bring successful prosecutions. We can’t continue to let the establishment police itself.
And finally, the Archive will act as a national memorial to the lives that were lost and shattered, as a way to begin the healing process. Support for the victims will be central to this work; part of the funds raised will go directly to providing the survivors with high-quality ongoing therapy with a practitioner of their choice.
To establish a therapeutic centre of excellence focused on therapy for survivors of long term sexual abuse.
Please support this vital work, and help Britain to start to heal from this national tragedy.
What We Will Do
The work will take place in three phases.
Phase 1: Gathering Testimonies
The recordings will be uploaded to a dedicated website, in a format that makes it easy for the public and researchers to access the archives. Transcriptions will also be provided and indexed.
This work will be done in conjunction with therapists who will be on hand to support the survivors through the process, and lawyers who can advise on how to release the information without jeopardising any future legal proceedings.
Although we hope to get much of this work done in the two to three years, we will continue to record testimonies from survivors and secondary survivors (children and family members) for as long as there are those who have not yet told their story.
Phase 2: Moving Forward
In order to properly move forward we need justice for the survivors. We also need to support them with high-quality therapy so that they can rebuild their lives. For that reason there will be two streams of work in phase 2:
Legal: We will use the testimonies gathered to lean on the CPS to bring prosecutions, or to bring private prosecutions if required, of all officials who facilitated the gangs.
Therapeutic: We will crowd-fund high quality, long-term therapy for the survivors, who at the moment are given nothing more than a few hours of NHS therapy. We will also offer the same support for children born to survivors as a result of rape.
We intend to launch phase two no later than a year after the launch of phase one.
Phase 3: Legacy
In the longer term, the archive will be housed in a physical building open to all. We would make the full archive available to researchers who want to better understand this chapter of Britain's history. We also hope to fund a dedicated Centre of Excellence for therapeutic support for survivors of long term sexual abuse.
Support Us!
A website is already under way, and we have a videographer ready and waiting to record testimonies.
We are looking for qualified lawyers and therapists to help us with phase one, to ensure we get this project absolutely right.
Organizer
Donna Edmunds
Organizer
England