Black church leaders met yesterday with the children’s minister to discuss ways of better protecting children in immigrant communities from abuse. The meeting was met with claims that African communities are becoming unfairly stigmatised by the recent high profile abuse cases.
The summit was called by Beverley Hughes amid concerns over child abuse, including exorcism, in immigrant communities, particularly those ‘hard to reach’ by the social services. The meeting is a response particularly to the high-profile court case last month in which three Angolans were jailed for abusing an eight-year-old girl they accused of being a witch.
The meeting was attended by ministers from the Department for Education and Skills and the Home Office, as well as representatives of the police, local government and numerous faith groups, including those from black church communities.
The meeting called for a greater focus on immigrant communities, as well as the proper research of ritualistic abuse.
Black churches have called for a stop to ‘racist’ reporting on the issue, saying they have been unfairly linked to these cases.
Bishop Joe Aldred, black church spokesman for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, who attended yesterday’s meeting, said he hoped the meeting would not help to further "stigmatise" black churches.
He said: "Sometimes by simply having a meeting it can appear as though you are saying there is problem.
"Whilst you cannot turn a blind eye to any suggestion this might be happening and we’ve had two or three cases which worry us, it would be quite wrong to give the impression that child abuse was the staple diet for black churches," Dr Aldred said.
The bishop also stressed that his call was for "broadening the debate and therefore to avoid stigmatisation and also whitewashing other communities as though they don’t have any problems."
The police was keen to show sensitivity to the issue after a report commissioned by the Metropolitan Police which raised the issue of alleged child abuse in some black churches which included exorcism. The Met rebuked the Media, saying its coverage was "sensationalist and did not represent the purpose or findings of the report."
Bishop Aldred defended the majority of legitimate churches, accusing the perpetrators of such abuse as belonging to cults, and condemning them for tarnishing the whole black community.
The Department for Education and Skills released a statement which read:
"The meeting was part of a process of dialogue and investigation in which all these groups are participating, working together towards a better understanding of the complex issues involved, and deepening engagement with hard-to-reach communities.
It was agreed that it is important to continue to work closely with communities to understand the issues and ensure that they are fully engaged in activity being taken forward.
"I and my colleagues particularly who go to black churches find it quite distasteful because there are a few cases of child abuse which have some associations with ‘churches’, some of which we feel are not a legitimate church, but would be best described as cults.
"Where it happens, if it happens, then of course people need to be held to account under the law as criminals, rather than people of faith."
He called for the tightening up of immigration controls to help identify vulnerable children, and for a register of abuse victims’ ethnicity to be taken by police and social services.
