UK's Suella Braverman targets Pakistan-origin men, says 'grooming gangs' abusing white English girls

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who is known for her tough stand on illegal migrants, on Sunday came down hard on British Pakistani men who she alleged were harming white English girls in Britain. She said that some British Pakistanis were running child abuse networks in the UK and that the authorities and civil society were turning a blind eye out of political correctness.

"(We see) a practice whereby vulnerable white English girls - sometimes in care, sometimes in challenging circumstances - being pursued, raped, drugged, and harmed by gangs of British Pakistani men, who work in child abuse rings or networks," Braverman said while speaking to British news channel Sky News.

"We have seen institutions, and state agencies, social workers, teachers, and police turn a blind eye to these signs of abuse out of political correctness, out of fear being called racist, out of fear being called bigoted. And as a result, thousands of children have had their childhoods robbed and devastated."

The home secretary further said that there were many of these perpetrators running wild and behaving in this way, and it was now down to authorities to track these perpetrators down without fear or favour relentlessly and bring them to justice.

A grooming gang in the UK refers to a group of people who sexually exploit and abuse vulnerable children, often through a process of grooming, coercion, and intimidation. These gangs typically operate in communities with a high proportion of vulnerable children, such as those in care or from disadvantaged backgrounds.

"Grooming gangs are a stain on our country," Braverman said on Sunday. "Last summer Rishi Sunak promised that if he became Prime Minister, he would make eradicating grooming gangs and delivering justice for their victims, a personal priority. We are now making good on that promise," she announced on Twitter.

The home secretary's remarks triggered a volley of reactions, with some agreeing to the need for strengthening the criminal justice system while others disputing the fact that they all belong to one community. 

Reacting to her tweet, Dave Sharp, a child sex abuse survivor, said the authorities may not be able to catch all the groomers and the paedophiles, but they can go a long way to scare them off by empowering the victims and survivors. "We need to look at the criminal justice system, and child abuse charities," the user wrote on Twitter. 

Vikram Sood, the former head of India's foreign intelligence agency, said that child abuse was happening in the UK since 1997. Till 2014, he said, about 1,400 cases of brutal rape of non-Muslim white girls mostly by men of Pakistani origin were recorded. "Complaints were brushed off as emanating from Islamophobes," he wrote on Twitter.

Sood, who served as RAW chief from 200 to 2003, said those complaining about child abuse had to seek police protection and police invariably failed to act fearing accusations of racism and damaging inter-community relations - something that Braverman suggested when she said people turned a blind eye out of political correctness.  

However, some social users shared a 2020 research by the home department which concluded that group-based offenders in the UK were "most commonly White". 

Referring to this finding, Shoaib M Khan, a human rights lawyer, in a tweet said: "2020 Home Office study - Research found group-based CSE (Child Sexual Exploitation) offenders are most commonly white. Some suggest over-represented black/Asian offenders relative to demographics. But not possible to conclude this is representative of all group-based CSE offending." 

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was asked why his home secretary was talking specifically about British Pakistani gangs when there was not enough evidence to suggest that child abuse was committed by one community. He said the government had made independent inquiries into the incidents and it was clear that when victims or whistleblowers raised these concerns, those concerns were ignored. "And often the reasons were put down to people wanting to be not culturally insensitive or because of political correctness - that is not right," he said in an interview with Sky News.

Sunak on Monday said his government has begun cracking down on 'grooming gangs' as political correctness should never get in the way of keeping women and young girls safe.

The home secretary on Sunday launched a mandatory reporting duty for those working or volunteering with children to report child sexual abuse. Mandatory reporting was one of the key recommendations made by the independent inquiry report to crack down on child sexual abuse and address the systemic under-reporting of this crime, the home office said.

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