© By Sophie Lewis | The Grooming Files | @sophielewiseditorial

A brutal comparison the system doesn’t want you to make

If a man was found online trying to radicalise a 12-year-old into violence, the state would respond with force:

• Surveillance
• Arrest
• Asset freeze
• Counter-terror task forces
• International data sharing

But when a man grooms a 12-year-old into sending explicit photos? He gets a slap on the wrist. She gets a lifetime of trauma. And the system shrugs.

Let’s get honest. Grooming is terrorism.

It’s ideological. It’s psychological warfare. It destroys lives. It creates silence, control, and fear. It preys on the vulnerable to serve a sick agenda.

The only difference? The people funding it wear suits. The people doing it sit on school boards. The ones ignoring it have police badges.

A Cold, Savage Comparison:

When it comes to terrorism, governments mobilise full-scale responses: MI5 task forces, global surveillance, freezing of assets, and public safety campaigns. Victims are compensated, de-radicalisation funding is poured into communities, and international agencies work together to dismantle threats.

Now compare that to grooming: instead of MI5, we have unpaid sting groups. Instead of surveillance, we have Snapchat disappearing messages. Offenders often receive fines or community service. Survivors are left crowdfunding therapy. There’s no serious offender rehab. No global coordination. No asset freezes. Just “risk assessments” and internal letters. And while terrorism gets addressed at national level by Prime Ministers, grooming gets buried by local safeguarding boards that are often asleep at the wheel.

So what’s the real reason we don’t treat it the same?

Because grooming implicates:

• Teachers
• Priests
• Stepdads
• Celebrities
• Judges
• Police officers
• Politicians

The threat isn’t foreign. It’s domestic. And that makes it harder to prosecute — not legally, but politically.

What if we…

• Froze the bank accounts of convicted predators?
• Made their names publicly searchable?
• Offered survivors lifelong funded therapy?
• Built counter-grooming tech into platforms by law?
• Jailed platforms that hid abuse the way we jail those who fund terror?

The infrastructure is there. The tech exists. The will doesn’t.

Because grooming doesn’t disrupt power — it protects it.

“If grooming was treated like terrorism, half the establishment would be under surveillance.”

Here’s the brutal truth:

The state will build empires to track imaginary threats — but barely lifts a finger when real ones sit in Parliament.

That’s not failure. That’s design.

Until we force it to change.

This article is part of The Grooming Files — a survivor-led mission to expose what the system hides.

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