Tens of thousands of young girls across the UK have been groomed and raped by gangs of young men, and research indicates that these men are mostly of Pakistani heritage, and mostly Muslims.
There are extremely complex cultural, religious and localised reasons for this, which is why Sajid Javid commissioned a report for the Home Office into the characteristics of grooming gangs. The objective was to reveal the true causes of the rape crisis and to dispel fake news.
However, the government have now refused to publish the report, claiming that doing so would “not be in the public interest”. Well we, the public, disagree.
That’s why Hearts of Oak activist Jonathan Wong started a petition urging the government to release the report. In a matter of days, the petition smashed the 100,000 signatures required to call a parliamentary debate. It now stands at 117,000 signatures, and you can sign here if you haven’t already.
It is likely that parliament will hold a debate on whether or not to release the report soon, so Hearts of Oak are launching a ‘virtual lobby’ of MPs, where our thousands of supporters will contact their MPs, explaining the importance of the report and urging them to publish the report.
If you want to take part in this virtual lobby, you can contact your MP, and ask for their support for our campaign.
You can find out who your MP is, and how to contact them, here. You can contact your MP either by post or by email.
When you contact your MP, please make sure to do the following:
- Include a link to the petition and the current number of signatures.
- Explain the importance of tackling the rape crisis, and why it is important to you.
- Ensure you are polite and reasonable. Your MP may be very willing to work with you on this campaign, so don’t start with the assumption that they are the enemy.
- Explain that the current situation amounts to a cover-up. The government is hiding the truth from the people, and thousands of victims of this crime deserve honesty.
- If the rape gang crisis has particularly affected your area, talk about this – especially if it has directly affected you or somebody you know.
For a helpful starting point, take a look at our example letter, which covers all of the key points to include. Please make sure you modify this letter before sending it to your MP though, as a personal touch is very important.
We will later be adding here an email address which you should contact if you get a response from your MP. This will help us to gather data about how much support we have in parliament, and which MPs we need to focus on lobbying.