The leftist Labour Party government has reportedly scrapped a compensation programme for the victims of child sex abuse in Britain as part of its financial austerity measures.
A national redress scheme for child sexual abuse victims in England and Wales has been abandoned by the Home Office, despite the previous Conservative government promising it to victims in 2023, Sky News reports.
According to the news outlet, a Home Office report entitled ‘Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update’ cited costs for the decision to scrap the scheme, saying that it “is not currently taking forward any further steps on the IICSA proposal for a separate, national financial redress scheme for all survivors of child sexual abuse”.
“In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward,” the document reportedly added.
The scheme was first promised following recommendations from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) by Alexis Jay. Similar schemes have been established for victims in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
The government of Sir Kier Starmer has defended its decision not to conduct a national inquiry into the Muslim child rape grooming scandals across the country by claiming that previous reports, such as the Jay report, were sufficient, and that the government would instead focus on implementing the recommendations of the reports.
Despite thousands of mostly young girls falling victim to predominantly Pakistani-heritage child rape gangs, while being overlooked by police and local officials over fear of appearing racist, Prime Minsiter Starmer claimed that those demanding a full national inquiry with statutory powers to compel witness testimony were merely feeding into narratives of the “far-right“.
The plight of the countless victims was downplayed again last week by cabinet minister Lucy Powell, who accused Reform supporter Tim Montgomerie of engaging in “dog whistle” politics by raising a recent documentary on the grooming gangs.
A survivor of the infamous Rochdale grooming gang rapists, Sarah Wilson said in response: “This is what victims and survivors have been up against all these years. This is why we weren’t listened to.
“They never cared, and they never will. [They] totally dismissed survivors and our experiences of being groomed.”
Although the government has maintained that previous reports are sufficient, there has been almost no accountability for the failures of police and officials in mostly Labour-run cities and towns, who failed to safeguard young girls from Muslim sexual predators.
Indeed, in the grooming gang hotspot of Rotherham, where at least 1,400 girls were sexually abused, an investigation from the Independent Office for Police Conduct in 2022 concluded with no police officers being punished. It came despite the watchdog previously admitting that police in the area ignored grooming gangs for fear of stoking “racial tensions” given that the victims were mostly white girls and the perpetrators mostly of Pakistani extraction.
One unnamed Rotherham Police chief inspector was quoted as saying: “With it being Asians, we can’t afford for this to be coming out as Rotherham would erupt.”
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