Bina Shah

On Mar. 10, Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallström announced the cancellation of a 37 million euro arms deal with Saudi Arabia, citing the kingdom’s poor human rights record. She singled out the case of liberal blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes from the Saudi government for speaking out against some Muslim clerics. A diplomatic row ensued between the two nations, with the kingdom declaring that Swedes would no longer be issued visas. This in turn drew ire within financial and diplomatic circles in Sweden, which claimed the minister’s move would hurt Sweden’s foreign standing and financial interests in the world.

I am puzzled.

Last month a damning report came out that showed 1,400 vulnerable children in Rotherham, UK, had been systematically sexually abused by gangs of men, mostly of Pakistani origin, between 1997 and 2013. It’s easy to pass this off as a crime that doesn’t concern us because it took place on British soil. Yet it gives us a vital opportunity to examine our attitudes towards child abuse in our own country, so that we can better work to protect children here and anywhere else where Pakistanis live in the world.