Pakistan warns of serious repercussions of UK minister Braverman’s remarks against Pakistani men

Islamabad, April 5

Condemning UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman's "discriminatory and xenophobic" remarks against Pakistani men, the Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) has warned of the serious repercussions of such comments, media reports said.

The British minister has been accused of "peddling extremist far-right lies" about Pakistanis after she singled out British Pakistani men over concerns about grooming gangs as she accused authorities of turning a "blind eye" to signs of abuse involving young people, Geo News reported.

In a recent interview with Sky News, the UK minister said that the "systematic and institutional failure to safeguard the welfare of children when it comes to sexual abuse" was one of the biggest scandals in British history.

"What's clear is that what we've seen is a practice whereby vulnerable white English girls, sometimes in care, sometimes who are in challenging circumstances, being pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British-Pakistani men who've worked in child abuse rings or networks," she had stated.

FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, in a press briefing, warned that such comments would give "rise to dangerous trends".

Braverman had also been warned by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) that sexual predators do not just come from "one background" and that a focus solely on race could create new "blind spots" when tackling child abuse, Geo News reported.

The NSPCC had criticised the UK Home Secretary and expressed its shock at her hatred towards Pakistanis and for singling out Pakistanis.

--IANS