Elon Musk is more interested in demonising Muslims than finding justice for victims of grooming

Child abuse victims are being failed once again because of political agendas and Islamophobic rhetoric, says Nadeine Asbali

You would have thought that the victims of the horrific grooming gangs scandal have been through enough without being used as a political football to further the Islamophobic agenda of the far right. Yet, once again, this is what we are seeing. With grooming gangs back in the headlines, anti-Muslim sentiment is again dominating political discourse. It seems that justice for the victims – as well as preventing this from happening again – falls by the wayside when there are political points to be scored.

I’ve lost count of the number of headlines and social media posts I’ve encountered this week referring to “Muslim grooming gangs”, peddling the damaging myth that the organised child sexual exploitation occurring in countless cities across the UK in the early 2000s was somehow tightly linked to a religion peacefully followed by a billion people around the world.

Elon Musk has led this most recent wave of virulent Islamophobia, pushing disinformation on his X (Twitter) account about grooming gangs being a Muslim issue, a sign of failed multiculturalism and accusing Labour politicians like Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips of being “rape genocide apologists” and “complicit” in the “rape” of Britain.

Musk’s language is hard to ignore here. To talk about Britain itself being “raped” perpetuates this idea of violent, perverted foreigners (read: Muslims) coming to Britain and attacking native Brits. It paints all Muslims and all migrants as the enemy of Britain, ignoring the fact that Muslims like me have been part of the fabric of Britain for centuries.

When you consider Musk’s track record of peddling far-right, anti-migrant and Islamophobic narratives, like false reports claiming that the Southport attacker was Muslim last summer – which fuelled riots and widespread violence including hotels housing refugees being torched and mosques being attacked (as well as his ongoing support for the likes of Tommy Robinson who is known for his own anti-Muslim views) – it seems that this is less about securing justice for the victims of grooming and more about finding yet another way to demonise Muslims.

Of course, we have seen this misconception about grooming gangs presented as fact before. Consider when then-home secretary Suella Braverman claimed that the perpetrators of grooming in the UK are “almost all British-Pakistani men”. Yes, some of the crimes were carried out by British men of Pakistani heritage, but not “almost all” of them. In fact, a 2020 report conducted by the government concluded that most child sexual abuse gangs were made up of white men.

In fact, reports that the police were overly cautious about investigating the grooming gangs at the time due to fears of igniting community tensions or appearing racist have long been used to promote the idea that political correctness and pandering to the feelings of “foreigners” is repeatedly put before the safety of “native” Brits. Just last week, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick suggested that Britain should cap immigration for those from “alien cultures” with “medieval attitudes towards women”, pointing to the grooming scandal as evidence.

But it’s not just about the widespread, unchecked Islamophobia that is regurgitated every time grooming gangs are back in the news and its impact on everyday Muslims going about their lives. As a secondary school teacher of eight years, I have received regular training on identifying and preventing child sexual exploitation –and when you see how devastating the impact is on a young person’s life, it’s impossible not to feel as though the victims of these crimes are being let down once again.

First, they were failed by those who should have kept them safe, but now they are being failed for a second time by a system so fractured that it would rather exploit those suffering for political point-scoring than come together to stop this ever happening again. Those who are the most outspoken about this scandal are simply shouting over the voices of the victims, and jumping on the anti-Muslim bandwagon is only utilising the trauma of vulnerable young girls to sow public discord.

Not only does this do nothing to heal the pain of those who lived through it, but it also makes meaningful change more difficult. Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has spoken openly about how the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is being delayed by renewed calls for a public inquiry by those on the right. Considering how the bill includes propositions like a unique identifying number for every child, something that would revolutionise how authorities work together to protect those who need it most, it is clear that this Islamophobic wave sweeping our national politics is a direct danger to the nation’s most vulnerable children.

Rather than descending into divisive rhetoric, what the nation needs at a time like this is genuine systemic change. As a teacher, I see firsthand how the fragmentation of public services lets down the most vulnerable children every day. The horrific consequence of this failing is clear, too, in the tragic Sara Sharif case, where pulling their child out of school was enough for her parents to obscure the horrendous abuse they were inflicting upon her, despite teachers reporting bruising and her family being known to social services since before her birth.

Whatever they may claim, those latching onto this scandal as an opportunity to demonise Muslims and further their problematic agenda, cannot really care about the victims of this public failure. If they did, they would be calling for genuine change, for authorities that are better connected, and for a more centralised system to keep the most vulnerable safe – rather than simply pitting one disenfranchised group against another.