It’s time to address the U.K. rape gangs scandal as an institutionalized form of modern slavery within a Western democracy. In particular, we should explicitly apply sociologist Orlando Patterson’s framework from his seminal 1982 book Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study.
In this book, which was republished in 2018, Patterson defines slavery not primarily as a legal relation of property, but as “the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons."
He argues that this condition constitutes social death, a profound form of existential exclusion where the enslaved person is rendered a non-person in social terms. Slavery, in Patterson’s view, entails three key constituent elements:
1. Violent domination-the constant, naked exercise of force and total power over the slave, approaching limitless control from the master’s perspective and total powerlessness from the slave’s.
2. Natal alienation-the slave is severed from all legitimate claims of birth, kinship, ancestry, and social belonging; they cannot form or inherit independent social ties, rendering them “socially dead" from the moment of enslavement (and often by birth in hereditary systems).
3. General dishonor - the slave is degraded, stripped of honor, publicly shamed, and treated as inherently inferior or worthless, reinforcing their exclusion from the moral and symbolic community.
In the grooming gangs cases (such as those in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, and others), thousands of vulnerable young girls-predominantly white and British-were systematically raped, trafficked, and exploited over extended periods by organized groups of men, largely of Pakistani Muslim heritage. The victims were subjected to prolonged sexual servitude akin to slavery.
Applying Patterson’s framework, it’s clear these girls experienced a modern analogue of social death:
1. They endured violent domination through repeated rape, threats, coercion with drugs/alcohol, intimidation, and control over their movements and bodies-creating a state of near-total powerlessness.
2. They suffered natal alienation in a symbolic sense: isolated from family, friends, and normal social networks; denied the ability to belong as full citizens; cut off from legitimate kinship and community ties as authorities failed to protect or recognize their plight; and treated as disposable outsiders in their own society.
3. They were subjected to general dishonor: branded as “trash," worthless, or complicit in their own abuse; degraded through extreme sexual violation and public shaming (often with the knowledge or indifference of those around them); and stripped of social worth, making them “generally dishonored" in the eyes of the perpetrators and, crucially, the failing institutions meant to protect them.
Social Motives
Complementing Patterson’s sociological framework, social psychologist Susan T. Fiske offers a complementary lens through her theory of five core social motives, outlined in her 2004 book Social Beings: A Core Motives Approach to Social Psychology. Fiske posits that humans are fundamentally driven by these five motives-acronymized as BUC(k)ET (Belonging, Understanding, Controlling, Enhancing self, and Trusting)-which represent the essential psychological “goods" needed for effective social functioning, well-being, and group integration.
These motives, which Patterson invoked in the second edition of his book on slavery, are not mere desires but adaptive imperatives that enable individuals to navigate social environments successfully. When systematically denied, as in cases of extreme exploitation or abuse, they exacerbate isolation and dehumanization, aligning closely with concepts like social death.
In Fiske’s model, Belonging is the foundational motive, reflecting the need for stable, supportive social connections and group inclusion; Understanding involves constructing a shared, coherent sense of reality to predict and interpret the world; Controlling pertains to perceiving a contingency between one’s actions and outcomes, fostering a sense of efficacy; Enhancing self drives the pursuit of self-esteem, competence, and positive regard; and Trusting underpins the ability to rely on others and institutions for safety and reciprocity.
Fiske emphasizes that the fulfillment of these motives is crucial for mental health and social harmony. Deprivation of these motives can lead to profound psychological harm, including learned helplessness, identity fragmentation, and withdrawal from society. Let’s think through the impact of the trauma and abuse endured by the victims-and the failure of U.K. elites to protect them on the ability of young girls to pursue these social goals.
1. The ability of the victims to enjoy any sense of belonging was shattered as the girls were alienated from their families, peers, and communities through coercion, shame, and institutional neglect, leaving them without stable social anchors and reinforcing their status as outsiders in their own country.
2. The ability of the victims to understanding their lives was undermined by the chaotic, unpredictable nature of the abuse, compounded by authorities’ gaslighting-dismissing reports or blaming victims-which prevented the girls from forming a coherent narrative of their experiences or anticipating safety in a supposedly protective society.
3. The ability of the victims to control their lives was utterly eradicated through the perpetrators’ total domination, where threats, drugs, and violence rendered the victims powerless to influence their circumstances or escape, fostering a pervasive sense of helplessness.
4. The ability of the victims to enhance their lives was destroyed by the relentless degradation, where being treated as disposable “trash" internalized feelings of worthlessness, blocking any path to self-improvement, competence, or positive identity.
5. Finally, Trusting was demolished by the betrayal of those in power-police, social services, and elites-who failed to intervene, often prioritizing cultural sensitivities over justice, leaving victims unable to rely on institutions or the wider community for protection.
This systematic denial of the ability of the victims to pursue BUC(k)ET motives is the epitome of social death suffered by the victims of the rape gangs in the United Kingdom.
Why?
These young women-born and raised as citizens in the UK-were effectively enslaved in their own country, reduced to non-persons whose suffering was tolerated or ignored. This was facilitated by a tacit coalition: the perpetrators who exercised the domination, and elements of native British elites (police, social services, local councils) who, according to multiple official inquiries (e.g., Alexis Jay’s 2014 Rotherham report documenting ~1,400 victims abused 1997-2013), repeatedly failed to act decisively-often citing fears of racism or cultural sensitivities.
By turning a blind eye or downplaying the crimes, authorities effectively sacrificed these girls to maintain fragile social order. They purchased compliance from segments of the Pakistani/Muslim community, avoiding backlash that might have demanded greater assimilation and a badly needed cultural reckoning with the ideology of Islamism.
With the rape gang crisis, we see a perverse exchange where the social death of vulnerable girls was tolerated to manage tensions in a multicultural democracy. The result was not chattel slavery in the classical sense, but a grave, organized form of modern sexual enslavement that inflicted profound, lasting social death on its victims.
The long-term impact will be devastating for the United Kingdom. By preserving a superficial “peace" at the devastating expense of the victims’ welfare, autonomy, and social existence, British elites have likely poisoned intergroup relations in the United Kingdom for a long, long time. In the 2018 edition of his book, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Patterson reports
The fracturing of trust is the aftereffect of slavery best documented by modern social science. Today black Americans are by far the least trusting group of Americans: only 17 percent of them say that other people can be trusted, compared with 45 percent of whites, a remarkable gap that remains even after class, age, and marital status are taken into account. To be sure, blacks trust each other far more than they trust whites (70 percent compared with 23 percent), but the degree to which they distrust their own neighbors is extraordinary. This corrosive lineament of slavery has been independently confirmed in Africa as well: a study by two economic historians shows that Africans whose ancestors were heavily raided in the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades are significantly less trusting today than other Africans, that the relation is causal, and that the impact of the slave trade and slavery is mediated through internalized cultural norms, beliefs, and values.
God save the United Kingdom.
Dexter Van Zile, Middle East Forum’s Violin Family Research Fellow, is managing editor of Focus on Western Islamism, a news outlet established by MEF in 2022. Prior to his current position, Van Zile worked at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis for 16 years, where he played a major role in countering misinformation broadcast into Christian churches by Palestinian Christians and refuting antisemitic propaganda.
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