🔗 Share this article

One person that “married” a fifteen-year-old teenager via a religious ceremony is one of eight individuals to have been sentenced of abuse charges against her.

The victim was exploited as well as victimized by perpetrators beginning when she was 13 and it persisted while she was in an area children's home, testimony showed.

A Bradford Crown Court jury learned the ceremony in the early 2000s involving Raja Zulqurnean, had present a social worker assigned to her despite residential staff suspecting that exploitation was occurring.

The defendant, aged 43, received a guilty verdict for rape as well as indecent assault and jailed last May to at least 18 years though it was raised to 23 years after an appeals court.

‘Institutional scandal’

The survivor commented: “This exceeded an isolated incident. This was an institutional scandal and nobody showed concern about my welfare.

“I was married to someone who harmed me. What allows a minor to marry? Social services enabled it,” she added.

The individual got in touch with the press during 2019 regarding what she endured of sexual exploitation upon noticing a different individual who harmed her, a co-defendant, on a news report regarding exploitation of minors.

Khaliq, forty-four, already serving time for abuse charges during that period, was found guilty in court in June this year of rape charges and additional offenses with sentencing pending.

According to records seen by news outlets authorities within the facility recorded that the victim “was meeting men after hours and failed to notify facility employees about where she had been”.

The woman stated: “I was under a care order yet I received no protection, and the institutions intended for my safety enabled my abuse.”

Official reports showed the victim went missing 101 times from 2002 to 2004.

A social worker testified in court that individuals arriving in multiple cars each night frequently visited at the children's home and license plate numbers were reported to law enforcement each week.

The victim, whose identity is protected, commented the consequences of speaking out proved traumatic.

“After I reported, I wasn’t informed how it would harm my well-being, the impact it would have on family connections, how it would alter my cognitive state,” she noted.

“I feel like I've experienced more trauma compared to my childhood because I've lived it over and over again as an adult without any relief.

“It resulted in emotional distress.”

‘Survivors ignored’

The victim’s solicitor, the victim's solicitor, condemned the actions of care staff and police in that period, during the exploitation.

“Employees at the facility were aware these offenses were happening, not just to this girl but to others simultaneously,” he said.

“It should have been stopped. The police should have been in there promptly and those affected possibly moved away from that place.”

The woman stated other minors in the facility also reported concerning exploitation.

“Many individuals were reporting stuff at that time, I wasn’t alone,” she noted.

“The women that have got justice in recent years are a small portion of those who were exploited in the area.

“Numerous individuals who remain unheard.”

A police spokesperson said that from the early 2010s onward, they had “heavily funded and improved” protective measures implementing a “thorough and diligent strategy to investigating historical events”.

Officials said that multiple probes continue to be active, stating: “The work undertaken in recent years has resulted in hundreds of perpetrators now serving long incarcerations.”

Susan Hinchcliffe, a local official, stated there had been “major deficiencies regarding how institutions in our district acted at that time and regrets were expressed”.

“Protection was not provided to the survivor as required,” she continued.

She explained what occurred were “looked at in depth” during an earlier review into child sex abuse in the district.

She added the findings were submitted to a national investigation into Child Sexual Abuse and recommendations had been acted on within the region so that agencies would “enhance safeguarding {children in the here and now|minors