Former Home Secretary Sajid Javidhas announced that he will lead a “No Holds Barred” think tank on child sexual abuse at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), but that will mean treading a fine line between cultural pressure points and universal truths that lie at the heart of abuse.

Javid’s think tank on child sexual abuse – do we really need another – was announced in The Telegraph on 30 May, and included an account of what the exercise would involve, as well as some not-so subtle soundbites blaming lockdown for child abuse ahead of schools reopening in full the following day.

Among the list of items Javid’s think tank hopes to look at, is how gang-based exploitation within UK Pakistani communities evolved, and why, as he puts it, “a disproportionate number of people are from Asian heritage, particularly Pakistani heritage.”

Mr Javid is himself from Pakistan, so it makes sense for the government to wheel him out to spearhead this think tank. It’s harder to rail against someone calling out their own culture, even if you suspect that person may not actually think they are from that culture at all.

In danger of going down the Priti Patel rabbit hole – she was widely ridiculed for her tough stance on immigration, despite her own parents being immigrants – Javid has a fine line to tread if he wants to produce a report worth reading.

Having grown up around a lot of different communities, I had the privilege of being exposed to Pakistani culture. Like any community-based culture, it is warm, embracing and places a heavy emphasis on family and protecting your own.

But like all cultures, Pakistani customs, many of which are rooted in ‘popular Islam’, are not always so warm, and include ill-informed practices which label other cultural groups within Pakistan and non-Muslim demographics, as undesirable, and inferior.

The concept of religious superiority, exalting your own and pushing away the unfamiliar, can be seen in almost every monotheistic religion we have, from Catholicism to Judaism. It would not be right to suggest that Islam is alone in its self exaltation, but it would not be wrong to assume this way of thinking plays a part in child sexual abuse, either.

It is now well understood that the majority of child victims in places like Rotherham were young, white girls, and that Pakistani men have been disproportionately involved in developing the grooming gangs that exploited them.

A 2013 study by the Child Exploitation and Online Police Command (CEOP), found that 50% of offenders who targeted vulnerable children, like the girls in Rotherham, involved all-Asian groups, while 21% were white and the remaining 17% involved multi-ethnic groups.

Break down the data further, and CEOP figures tell us that 75% of recorded group abusers, who targeted victims based on their vulnerability, are Asian, despite Asians making up only 7.5% of the UK’s population.

In a culture where sexual expression is limited out of deference to a higher power, and your own children are considered sacred, men who want to exploit children will inevitably look outside of their immediate communities to carry out these crimes.

The same cannot be said of the white, male population in the UK.

The CEOP study found that 100% of men with a long-standing paedophilic interest who abuse children in the UK are white. These men also act in groups (paedophile rings), though they tend to be smaller than groups formed by Asian men, typically acting in pairs rather than groups of four.

However, the study doesn’t factor in organisations like the Paedophile Information Exchange, whose members were both male, and female, and most likely predominantly white.

Some statistics suggest that overall, the vast majority of child sex offenders in England and Wales are white males, who made up 98% of all defendants in 2015-16. White men also represented 85% of convicted child sex offenders and 86% of the general population in 2011.

So what could Sajid Javid’s report have to offer, on a subject already being handled by the nation’s child abuse inquiry, and a phenomenon that we know involves more than just culture and religious belief?

A progressive report, which sets idiosyncrasies within Pakistani culture, and other cultures too, against those universal truths about child sexual abuse, might make it an exercise worth undertaking.

Pakistani men who are inclined towards child sexual abuse may have an approach which differs from other groups, but the underlying motivations are no different to those held by all other child sexual abusers.

Understanding that cultural norms are not the incentive but the excuse to carry out abuse should be at the heart of Javid’s report.

And while we don’t hesitate to question the Catholic Church about how its vow of celibacy emboldens priests to abuse children or its confessional protects sexual predators, identifying cultural and religious practices which further abuse has to be done thoughtfully and with the acknowledgment that child abuse crosses every border and every boundary we know.

There is something else. If Javid plans to use this report to feed our Pakistani population to the far right in order to further his political career inside a very white, elitist, British government, the backlash would be significant. The British, already divided by a pandemic, police brutality and Brexit, won’t be able to take much more.

Javid’s inquiry will look at grooming gangs and online child sexual abuse. Another report, which Javid commissioned in 2018 into the “characteristics and contexts” of gangs abusing children which argued that ignoring issues such as ethnicity is more likely to fuel racist movements, is set to be published later this year.

In a groundbreaking move, Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, has asked every state and territory in the country to compensate victims of child sexual abuse – and the Catholic Church must pay up, too.

The scheme was one of the central recommendations made by the Royal Commission investigation into tens of thousands of children sexually abused between 1960 and 2015 in Australian institutions.

The scheme is not compulsory though, which means that organisations like the Catholic Church, which is considered to be largely responsible for non recent child sexual abuse in Australia, will not be required to sign up. The inquiry found that 7% of all priests between 1960 and 2015 had allegedly abused children.

New South Wales and Victoria, two of the country’s most populated states, will start paying survivors of abuse up to 150,000 Australian dollars (£84,719) from July, 2018. This means that every institution within these states is now able to join the scheme, including churches. Politician and Australian Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews is urging parishioners to pressure their churches into signing up to the scheme.

It’s claimed that as of 2016, the Vatican has already paid almost $4 billion US dollars in compensation to victims of child sexual abuse, since 1950.

The announcement covers 9,000 people abused in New South Wales government institutions and 5,000 people abused in Victoria. The deal caps payments at 150,000 dollars for each person (£84,719), which is lower than the 200,000 (£112,958) maximum payment recommended by the commission.

Closer to home, we have no nationwide redress scheme in place, however some councils are now offering compensation to survivors of abuse. Lambeth Council has just launched its own redress scheme, with payments capped at £10,000.

We wrote to Lambeth Council to ask them a question about their redress scheme on 26th February, but have not yet heard back. This was our email to the council:

Dear Lambeth Council,

The scheme only covers Lambeth Children’s Homes and/or Shirley Oaks Primary School within the borough, and some foster care placements.

At present there is no redress scheme in the UK inviting councils and organisations to sign up and pay out. This may though, become one of the key recommendations our own independent inquiry into child sexual abuse makes, once it has completed its investigations.

A documentary made in 1995 about the role of Whips in Westminster, features an interview with a former Tory whip admitting that MPs would come to him for help covering up scandals, including what appear to be incidents of sexual abuse involving young boys.

Tim Fortescue can be seen in the clip talking about the kinds of personal problems politicians might have, and how whips were on hand to offer damage control for scandals that, as Fortescue puts it, “a member seemed likely to be mixed up in.” Whips would be only too happy to oblige, as the favour would ultimately lead to unconditional loyalty and obedience from the troubled MP:

“And we would do everything we can because we would store up brownie points… and if I mean, that sounds a pretty, pretty nasty reason, but it’s one of the reasons because if we could get a chap out of trouble then, he will do as we ask forever more.” 

Whilst the language doesn’t automatically imply guilt on the part of those MPs who were mentioned in scandals of different types, there is a strong implication of it, as Fortescue explains at the start of the clip that MPs were encouraged to come to him, and other whips, with the whole truth. This is the key phrase from the clip:

“Anyone with any sense, who was in trouble, would come to the whips and tell them the truth.”

The documentary also features Geoffrey Dickens, an outspoken Conservative MP who was responsible for calling out the government over an alleged paedophile ring operating between 1981-1985, at the height of the Paedophile Information Exchange’s involvement in British politics. Dickens also used his Parliamentary Privilege to call out diplomat Sir Peter Hayman as a paedophile, which was widely condemned at the time. Hayman was confirmed to be a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange, and was eventually jailed for child sexual offences.

Dickens is perhaps best remembered for handing over a dossier to Leon Brittan, with the names of every politician who was a member of PIE, and all those involved in child sexual abuse as well. On his meeting with Brittan, Dickens said that he was “encouraged” by the meeting, but later expressed concern that PIE had not been banned.

In 2013, Tom Watson, a Labour politician representing Bromwich East,  asked to have access to the dossier. The dossier was never found.

The documentary, entitled, “Life in The Whips Office,” runs to just over 58 minutes and is worth viewing for the revelations, there are several, around child sexual abuse and gender inequality, and for a look at current day politicians as they were when they were green and hungry for recognition.

Fortescue also makes disparaging comments about women in the documentary. When asked about the fact that the country has had a female Prime Minister but no female whips, Fortescue has this to say:

“Well, you’ve got to get your priorities right, haven’t you?”

The Interviewer goes on to ask, “Meaning what? The Whips’ Office is more important than who leads the party?”

And Fortescue replies, “You said it, I didn’t….”

The clip in which Fortescue mentions helping politicians deal with allegations relating to sleeping with small boys starts at 23:35. (We’ve also added it below).

The documentary resurfaced this week in a tweet by Richard Laird, Highland Councillor for Inverness Central, and Deputy Leader of the SNP Group.

With very many thanks to Raul for sharing this tweet with us.