Top Tory Warsi claims 'white girls are fair game' to some Pakistani men
Conservative party co-chairman says race played role in recent sexual abuse case in Rochdale
A small number of men of Pakistani heritage believe "white girls are fair game" for sexual abuse, the Conservative co-chair Sayeeda Warsi said on Friday.
In remarks which place her at odds with the Labour MP Keith Vaz and some women's groups, Lady Warsi made clear she believed race lay at the heart of the recent sexual abuse case in Rochdale.
"There is a small minority of Pakistani men who believe that white girls are fair game," Warsi told the London Evening Standard after the jailing of nine men for their part in a child sexual exploitation gang. "We have to be prepared to say that. You can only start solving a problem if you acknowledge it first."
Warsi, who is Britain's first Muslim to have a full cabinet seat, spoke out after the nine men from Rochdale were jailed for a total of 77 years at Liverpool crown court last week for sexually abusing young girls. The victims, the youngest of whom was 13 when the abuse began, were passed around the group of men for sex after being plied with food, alcohol and drugs.
Vaz, the former Europe minister who is now chairman of the commons home affairs select committee, said he did not believe the crimes were a "race issue".
But Warsi, who was prompted to speak out after her father condemned the abuse as "stomach-churningly sick", took a different view in her Evening Standard interview. "This small minority who see women as second class citizens, and white women probably as third class citizens, are to be spoken out against," she said.
The Tory co-chair also made clear that Muslim leaders needed to condemn the men's behaviour. "These were grown men, some of them religious teachers, or running businesses, with young families of their own. They knew this was wrong. Whether or not these girls were easy prey, they knew it was wrong.
"In mosque after mosque after mosque, this should be raised as an issue so that anybody who is remotely involved should start to feel that the community is turning on them. Communities have a responsibility to stand up and say: 'This is wrong, this will not be tolerated'."
The intervention by Warsi puts her at odds with some women's groups in addition to Vaz. Speaking on the day the men were sentenced, Vaz said: "It's quite wrong to stigmatise a whole community."
Vaz's remarks were echoed by Marai Larasi, co-chair of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, who told the Guardian last week: "An excessive focus on some cases of sexual exploitation with a primary focus on ethnicity rather than the exploitation itself is misleading and fuels racist attitudes which ultimately won't help women and girls."
Warsi said she spoke out after her father Safdar, who arrived in Britain from Pakistan in 1960 with £2 in his pocket, told her to speak out. Over dinner shortly after the men were sentenced, Warsi's father asked her what the government was going to do.
The Tory co-chair recalled in her interview: "Dad then said: 'Well, what are you doing about it?' I said: 'Oh, it's not me, it's a Home Office issue'."
Warsi's father called on his daughter to do better. "He said to me: 'Sayeeda, what is the point in being in a position of leadership if you don't lead on issues that are so fundamental? This is so stomach churningly sick that you should have been out there condemning it as loudly as you could. Uniquely, you are in a position to show leadership on this.' I thought to myself, he's absolutely right'."
Warsi, who praised the British Muslim Forum and the Muslim Council of Britain for a "fantastic" response in the wake of the sentencing, said the authorities should not allow cultural sensitivities to prevent investigations involving minority ethnic communities. "Cultural sensitivity should never be a bar to applying the law," she said.
If the authorities failed to act in an "open and front-footed" way it would "create a gap for extremists to fill, a gap where hate can be peddled".
This contrasted with Vaz, who warned that the criminal justice system should not "dance to the tune of the British National party."
Warsi has recently faced criticism from Conservative MPs who believe that she is one of the cabinet's weak links. But Warsi shored up her position last week with a strong performance in front of the Conservative 1922 committee.
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