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The writer and survivors advocate Jeanne McElvaney compares living through childhood sexual abuse as ‘like living in a war zone.’ “Each of us survived by doing the best we could, she writes, - a painful reminder of how abused children can be neglected and not believed. Young people and especially young girls have been seen as unworthy of protection, blamed and indeed shamed for the trauma they’ve experienced.

In recent days there’s been much debate on Professor Alexis Jay’s findings into child sexual abuse. Her landmark 2014 report focusing on Rotherham, estimated that 14 hundred children were exploited between 1997 and 2013, predominantly by men of Pakistani heritage. Her subsequent inquiry published in 2022 looked at institutional failings across England and Wales, the `epidemic’ prevalence of child sexual abuse and referred to lack of data which made it `impossible to know whether any particular ethnic group is over-represented as perpetrators.’

In the current climate, the sexual exploitation of predominantly white working class girls, risks being reduced to a culture war mainly around Asian grooming gangs. There seem to be two ideological positions – the anger of those who see cover up everywhere, in which all Muslims are complicit and Muslim men, the worst perpetrators. And the position taken by certain Muslim communities which insist that there are no cultural or religious issues at play and that drawing attention to the ethnic origin of many perpetrators is nothing more than racism - both positions foster a culture of denial, with little focus on the lasting injury done to survivors or the pervasive and secretive nature of child abuse.

Criminals should never be able to hide behind religious or cultural justifications, but we know that they often do.. So society as a whole has to ask itself what price does it put on a child’s safety? While the parent child bond is rightly understood as one of love, in many families, there is neither love nor protection. In Islamic thought children are seen as a gift. But its the focus on rights which reminds us of the mutual duty of care and respect. The Prophet said, “Just as your parents have rights over you, so too your child has many rights over you.’ The right of children to have food, clothing and be safe from harm sounds simple enough, yet challenges us to see children not as private property but a public and moral responsibility for us all. So when those who’ve suffered come forward and speak, we should listen because it takes a lot of courage for a young survivor to say they want a different life.

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