Rishi Sunak said political correctness had neglected grooming gang victims while describing a police task team.
The government announced that specialized officers backed by the National Crime Agency will be sent to assist with investigations.
In addition, improved ethnicity data will aid in ensuring that abusers do not elude justice due to “cultural sensitivities.”
Labour stated that the proposed measures were “far too inadequate.”
More data on the composition of grooming gangs, including ethnicity, would help ensure that suspects “cannot hide behind cultural sensitivity to evade justice,” according to the government.
On a visit to Rochdale, the prime minister was questioned whether it was appropriate for the home secretary to focus on British-Asian men when discussing grooming gangs in northern England.
Cases of victims and whistleblowers were “often ignored” by social workers, local politicians, and the police in Rochdale, Rotherham, and Telford, according to Mr. Sunak, because of “cultural sensitivity and political correctness.”
Previously, Sabah Kaiser, ethnic minority ambassador to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), stated that it was “extremely, extremely dangerous” to make child sexual abuse a “race issue.”
She stated: “Child sexual abuse has no race, no religion, and no culture. Child sexual abuse does not discriminate.”
Professor Alexis Jay OBE, who chairs the IICSA and investigated child abuse in Rotherham, applauded the announcement. But urged the government to implement her twenty recommendations “to better protect children from future sexual abuse.”
The task force announcement did not specify funding or officer numbers.
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, told LBC that political correctness should not “get in the way” of pursuing grooming networks. Adding that ethnic minorities are not involved in the “vast majority” of sexual abuse cases.
In a report released by the IICSA inquiry last year, it was determined that the police and councils did not comprehend the risk of organized gangs grooming children in their areas and were not collecting data that would help identify pedophiles and their ethnicity.
The report found that local authorities “don’t want to be labelled another Rochdale or Rotherham” due to grooming network cases.
Police found abuse in six sites but couldn’t prove its scope.
The IICSA has previously advocated for improved data collection across the nation, and the Home Office acknowledged in 2020 that “a lack of data… limits what can be known about the characteristics of offenders, victims, and criminal behavior.”
Through years of hearings and research, the IICSA discovered that child abuse occurred in a variety of settings. Including religious institutions, schools, the care system, and online, none of which are addressed by Monday’s announcement.
In addition, there is a substantial accumulation of court cases, which disproportionately affects victims of child abuse. Who often must wait for years while coping with the trauma their experience has caused.
Sir Peter Wanless, chief executive officer of the NSPCC, stated that the announcement “must be backed up with funding for services to help child victims recover and support for a struggling justice system.”
“Predators… come from a variety of cultural backgrounds,” he said. “It’s vital that by bringing up an issue like race, we don’t create other blind spots.”
On Monday, Downing Street also proposed making grooming gang membership an aggravating factor in punishment.
The government has already stated that those who work with minors will be required to report abuse or face prosecution.
To inaugurate the task force, Mr. Sunak met with local police and victims in Leeds and Greater Manchester on Monday.
On Sunday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman told that authorities had “willfully turned a blind eye” to high-profile abuse allegations, citing “cultural sensitivity” and fears of being labeled “bigoted” as contributing factors.
She claimed that “vulnerable white girls living in troubled circumstances have been abused, drugged, raped. And exploited” by networks of rapist gangs “dominated” by British-Pakistani males.
An independent inquiry found that Pakistani men abused at least 1,400 Rotherham children between 1997 and 2013.
Due to the ethnic nature of these cases, the issue has become a cause célèbre in far-right politics.
In 2020, research commissioned by the Home Office revealed that “a number” of high-profile cases “primarily involved men of Pakistani ethnicity,” but also revealed “significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this type of offending.”
However, “it is likely that no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offend.”
Dr. Ella Cockbain, associate professor at the Department of Security and Crime Science at University College London, stated that the government “ignores and contradicts” its research to “promote discredited stereotypes.
Tracy Brabin, the Labour mayor of West Yorkshire, referred to Ms. Braverman’s remarks as a “dog whistle.” While Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, described the plans as “far too inadequate for the magnitude of the problem.”
Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael backed cracking down on abusers. But that too many criminals would escape justice unless the government handled the court backlog and restored community policing.
