The UK government has initiated a national inquiry in the wake of an audit that revealed endemic failings to recognize and document true facts on cases involving the grooming and sexual abuse of young white girls by men of Pakistani origin.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper revealed the report to MPs on Monday, drawing on the independent 'National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse' conducted by Baroness Louise Casey. The report, commissioned this year, found a consistent reluctance by authorities to address the role of ethnicity in this kind of abuse for fear of being branded racist or fomenting community tensions.
"In the local evidence that the audit looked at from three police forces, they found clear signs of over-representation among suspects who were Asian and Pakistani heritage men, and she quotes examples of organisations steering clear of discussing it for fear of sounding racist or inflaming community tensions," Cooper explained to MPs, quoting from Casey's report.
Pointing to this worrisome trend, Cooper emphasized that the crimes are denounced by many in the broader community: "The overwhelming majority of people in our British, Asian and Pakistani heritage communities remain shocked by these horrific crimes and concur that the criminal minority of perverse predators and offenders in all communities have to be addressed firmly by the criminal justice system."
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, addressing at the weekend, promised unreserved backing for Casey's proposals, including the demand for a national-level investigation into the failures over these cases.
The home secretary also set out legislative reform, such as making rape laws more stringent and removing the criminal records of girls who had previously been convicted of prostitution — many of them being victims of exploitation.
Blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good but misdirected intentions all contributed to this collective failure," Cooper added, as she offered an "unequivocal apology" to child sexual exploitation survivors.
Public pressure on the matter grew earlier this year after Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, condemned the UK's handling of previous child exploitation cases in a tweet on his X platform (previously Twitter), sparking renewed debate and momentum for action on the issue.
The report's findings are stark. "Years have passed with questions raised about ethnicity but evaded. The system alleges there is a overarching issue of White offenders when that can't be established. This does no one any good at all, and worst of all those in the Asian, Pakistani or Muslim communities who unnecessarily suffer as those with sinister motives exploit this obfuscation to instill and disseminate hatred," the report claims.
It states that although child sexual exploitation is abhorrent no matter who carries it out, the amount of convictions of groups of men of Asian origin should have triggered more concerted action.
Casey's report used to criticize the terminology such as "group-based child sexual exploitation," which it branded as a euphemism for what in reality were vicious assaults and repeated rape. "Multiple sexual assaults carried out on children by multiple men over multiple occasions; beatings and gang rape," the report describes, in a graphic picture of the abuse.
The 197-page report catalogues the long-term effects on survivors — forced abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, and trauma of having their infants removed. Most of the victims still live with enduring mental and physical ill effects.
Among Baroness Casey's 12 main recommendations are an appeal to law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities to keep exact records regarding the ethnicity of offenders and to treat children as children, not criminalize them, and protect them accordingly.
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