UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under increasing pressure to launch a national inquiry into the issue of gangs of largely Pakistani heritage men being found guilty of grooming young girls across England in a sexual exploitation scandal dating back many years. He defended his record in the House of Commons this week: “When I was chief prosecutor, I took measures to confront this issue head-on. The first of the mass prosecutions for an Asian gang was in Rochdale. My team came to see me, and they put a number of Asian men in the dock.
“They wanted the green light for the first of these cases to take place. I gave that green light, but on one condition, because it came to my attention that one of the men who was going into the dock had previously been arrested but not charged… That is what started the reforms I brought about.”
However, Starmer’s use of the term “Asian” has come under severe attack from British Indian groups, with the Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO) among those warning that “part of the problem with this issue has been a fear of not speaking openly about the ethnicity and (or) religion of the majority of perpetrators”.
Hindu Council UK (HCUK) also issued a statement condemning the use of the term as it called for a nationwide inquiry into the “evil crimes”, which also impacted British Hindus and Sikhs.
HCUK Chair Krishna Bhan stated: “The scandal of these grooming gangs should be fully investigated, and the Home Office adopt a consistent way of tracking the disgusting and vile practice. We request the government to fully investigate the sexual grooming of girls across the UK by holding a national public inquiry, so that efforts can be made to bring justice to the victims, if it can ever be fully done considering the lasting effects of this trauma on the children, young girls and their parents.
“Hindu Council UK has long campaigned to the media for not using the word ‘Asian’ to describe these gangs as our Hindu and Sikh girls were also their victims and given the present lash-back on the ‘X’ platform, the BBC, finally last evening, refrained from using the word Asian in their news reports for a more accurate description of the gangs, but we are dismayed that the Prime Minister still chose to whitewash this heinous atrocity with the word ‘Asian’ in his press conference yesterday.”
During her parliamentary statement earlier this week, UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pointed to official reports dating back 10 years ago which found that “1,400 children had been sexually exploited, raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked across other towns, abducted, beaten and threatened with guns”.
“Girls as young as 11 had been raped. Those reports a decade ago identified a failure to confront Pakistani heritage gangs and a ‘widespread perception’ that they should ‘downplay the ethnic dimensions’ for fear of being seen to be racist,” she told MPs.
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