– 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by on 2016-07-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the reply by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 27 June (HL Deb, col 1352), what assessment they have made of whether, when referring to cases such as the Rotherham sexual abuse case, it is more accurate and appropriate to refer to the perpetrators as Muslim” or “Islamist”

Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tackling cases of child sexual exploitation, including those that have occurred in Rotherham, is a top priority for this Government. People who abuse children must be stopped – their race, age or gender is irrelevant.

Child sexual exploitation is not exclusive to any single culture, community, race or religion.

The previous Home Secretary launched the report ‘Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation’ in March 2015. This report sets out a national response to the failures we have seen in Rotherham and elsewhere, where children were let down by the very people who were responsible for protecting them.