PoliticsUK: Labour Party: Shadow home secretary challenges superior on Asian men systematically targeting white girls

young home-secretary shadow

disagrees with Labour old-timer's  

race comments

ePolitix [ Jan11,2k11]

Shadow home secretary Ed Balls has said that his Labour colleague Jack Straw was wrong to claim that groups of Asian men are systematically targeting white girls for abuse.

Giving evidence to the home affairs select committee, Balls was asked his view. 

As children's secretary in the last government he had to deal with the Baby P scandal.

He told the commmittee that in his "years of experience of child protection" he has "never seen a pattern" based on the race of the abused or the abusers. 

"To suggest it is a cultural issue is not my view," he added.

Former home secretary Straw spoke up after two men of Asian origin were convicted of raping and sexually assaulting girls in Derby.

"There is a specific problem which involves Pakistani heritage men... who target vulnerable young white girls," he claimed.

"We need to get the Pakistani community to think much more clearly about why this is going on and to be more open about the problems that are leading to a number of Pakistani heritage men thinking it is OK to target white girls in this way."


- unsigned, posted by Politicarp