London: Pakistan responded strongly to UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman's statement last week that British-Pakistani men ‘pursue, drug, rape, and harm vulnerable English girls’.
Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Braverman had given a ‘highly misleading picture’ targeting and treating Pakistanis differently.
In an interview to Sky News, Braverman said that groups of men made up almost all British-Pakistanis sexually abuse of children and young women.
Bravermna reportedly said: ‘What's clear is that what we've seen is a practice whereby vulnerable White English girls, sometimes in care, sometimes in challenging circumstances, are being pursued and raped, drugged, and harmed by gangs of British-Pakistani men who work in child abuse rings or networks.’
Braverman accused institutions, social workers, state agencies, cops, and social workers of turning a blind eye to the situation because of political correctness and fear of being branded as racist.
Calling for action she said ‘There are many perpetrators running wild and behaving in this way, and it is now time for authorities to track these perpetrators down without fear or favour and bring them to justice."
Mumtaz Zahra Baloch accused Braverman of branding ‘the criminal behaviour of some individuals as a representation of the entire community’.
Zahra Baloch further said that Braverman failed to take into account ‘systemic racism and ghettoization of communities’ and failed to ‘recognize the tremendous cultural, economic and political contributions of British-Pakistanis’ to the British society.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday condemned political correctness and vowed to take action against “vile" criminals behind the sexual abuse of children and young women.