It is the potentially explosive charge that may gain momentum after the conviction of the latest gang of men to be convicted of grooming underage girls. Is there something about Asian Muslim men that leads to them being disproportionately involved in the grooming and sexual abuse of white girls?
The courts have dealt with a cluster of horrific cases including those in Rochdale, Derby and now Oxford.
Available figures are patchy and flawed, but on the face of it they do suggest Asian men are disproportionately involved in group grooming leading to sexual abuse, compared with their numbers in the national population. This impression is supported by several sources in law enforcement who spoke to the Guardian.
A 2011 study by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre looked at the 2,379 potential offenders caught grooming girls since 2008. Of 940 suspects whose race could be identified, 26% were Asian, 38% were white and 32% were recorded as unknown. Asians are roughly 7% of the population.
A report for the children's commissioner in 2012 found there were 1,514 perpetrators. Of these, 545 were white, 415 were Asian and 244 were black. The ethnicity of 21% of perpetrators was not recorded. Attempts to analyse the Asian figure further runs into problems. Just 35 of the 415 Asians are recorded as having Pakistani heritage and thus highly likely to be Muslim, and only five are recorded as being from a Bangladeshi background. The heritage of 366 of the Asian group is not stated in those figures.
However, the view in different parts of law enforcement is that it is wrong to take these figures and cases and say the race or religion of the perpetrator leads to them committing these crimes.
A more credible link, says one senior source involved in bringing the criminals to justice, are their occupations. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said the demography of certain areas and the makeup of the night-time economy explained the over-representation of Asian offenders.
The source said: "Young vulnerable girls migrate to the night-time economy, where they come across taxi drivers and people working in takeaways, who are more likely to be Asian. It is better to focus on the professions of offenders, not their race or religion."
Meanwhile, group grooming is a small part of the sexual abuse threat facing Britain's children. Some of those working in protecting children from sexual abuse worry that the wrong message is being given about who poses dangers to children from the media coverage of "Asian grooming gangs".
They say the biggest dangers are not just on the street, but online, and the totality of abuse shows far more white people are perpetrators.
As if to highlight the point, on Monday there was a scheduled meeting at the Department for Education of several departments and concerned groups. The topic of Asian gangs was discussed, on a day when Stuart Hazell, a white man, pleaded guilty to murdering 12-year-old Tia Sharp, the granddaughter of his partner, in whom he had developed a sexual interest.
Court cases later this year will see allegations against mixed race sex gangs, including one with Asian and white suspects, and another with Asian and African men. Cases involving white suspects did not gain the same media attention as those where Asian gang members were convicted.
The idea that these are criminals striking when the opportunity arises, regardless of race, is given credence by the leader of the grooming gang in Rochdale. Shabir Ahmed was jailed for attacking a young Asian female as well as young white females. His case suggests opportunity, not race, was the major factor in whom he attacked.
Leading British Muslim groups are vowing to take action. Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said it wanted imams to use sermons to urge Muslims to report anyone they suspected of grooming and abuse.
The MCB has organised a conference for next month. Mogra said: "It is not helpful to give a race or religious label to this criminality. Reporting it is a civic and a religious duty."
