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U.K. to Collect Ethnicity Data on All Suspects in Child Sexual Abuse Cases
The ethnicity and nationality of all suspects in child sexual abuse and exploitation cases in Britain will be recorded by the police under new mandatory reporting rules, the British home secretary told Parliament on Monday.
The requirement was one of the recommendations of a government-commissioned review into a decades-long scandal in Britain involving so-called grooming gangs. The term refers to the sexual exploitation of young girls by groups of men in several towns and cities, which first came to widespread public attention in the early 2010s.
Most of the perpetrators in the largest criminal prosecutions so far have been of Pakistani heritage. The author of the review, Louise Casey, a member of the House of Lords who has conducted several inquiries into institutional failings, said that instead of investigating the ethnicity issue, many organizations had avoided the topic 'for fear of appearing racist' or raising community tensions.
She added that while 'a lot of attention' had been given to the issue of grooming gangs and 'reviews, inquiries and reports have made recommendations,' they had not been acted on forcefully enough, and victims had been repeatedly failed.
Ms. Casey's review made 12 recommendations, which she said would allow the country 'to draw a line in the sand' and 'make sure we do not end up back here again in a few years' time.'
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