After Musk's remarks, UK orders ‘rapid audit’ of ethnicity, cultural drivers behind child sexual abuse

London: The UK government has ordered a “rapid audit” of the scale and nature of grooming gangs based child sexual exploitation, including an examination of ethnicity data to determine “cultural and societal drivers” behind the crimes.

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper laid out the plans in a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday, also noting that many major investigations into the issue have involved "Pakistani heritage gangs".

Amid growing demands for a national inquiry into the scandal since Tesla CEO Elon Musk attacked the UK’s handling of the historic scandal on his X platform, the minister told Parliament that the Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce will immediately expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes.

“Many major investigations have involved Pakistani heritage gangs and the police taskforce evidence also shows exploitation and abuse taking place across many different communities and ethnicities. But the data on ethnicity of both perpetrators and victims is still inadequate,” Yvette Cooper told MPs.

“In order to go much further, I have asked Baroness Louise Casey to oversee a rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country and to make recommendations on the further work that is needed... It will properly examine ethnicity data and the demographics of the gangs involved and their victims and it will look at the cultural and societal drivers for this type of offending including amongst different ethnic groups,” she said.

The shadow home secretary, Conservative MP Chris Philp, responded to stress that the authorities had historically ignored or covered up ethnicity related data surrounding child sexual exploitation.

“Thousands of young girls, often in their early teens, were systematically raped by gangs of men, predominantly of Pakistani heritage. Those in positions of authority — the police, local councils and the Crown Prosecution Service — ignored them and, in some cases, even covered up these horrendous crimes because of absurd concerns about so-called cultural sensitivity,” said Philp.

“Ten days ago, the Prime Minister [Keir Starmer] compounded this by saying that it was a ‘far-right bandwagon’ to raise these issues and call for a proper inquiry. Let me say this: it is not far right to stand up for rape victims, and smearing those who raised this issue is exactly what led to the victims being ignored and the crimes covered up in the first place,” he told the Commons.

Cooper reiterated that the actions the government has announced this week covers the duty to report child abuse, proper penalties for any cover-ups, stronger sentences for grooming gangs, new rights for victims to get an independent review on reopening their case and new action to reopen historical police investigations.

The Home Office said the rapid national audit will begin soon and last three months. It will be supported by an expert advisory board and draw on the views of victims and survivors. This work, including the new Victims and Survivors Panel, will be backed by GBP 2.5 million in funding.

According to official estimates, of the 115,000 child sexual exploitation and abuse offences recorded in 2023 by police, over 4,000 of them were group-based offending. Of those, around 1,100 involved abuse within the family, and over 300 involved abuse in institutions, whilst over 700 of them were group-based grooming gang offences.

“We are also urging police forces to look again at closed and unsolved cases on their files, to ensure they pursue criminals and put them behind bars so they cannot hurt anyone else,” added Jess Phillips, Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls in the Home Office.