There is of course no suggestion that this was a case of home education, but it is the sort of thing that makes some people think that there should at least be a record of those children who are not at school:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/pure-evil-10yearold-deaf-and-mute-girl-trafficked-to-uk-from-pakistan-kept-in-cellar-and-raped-by-pensioner-ilyas-ashar-8884843.html
Surely school or not is irrelevant - how did this couple bring an unrelated child into the UK?
ReplyDelete'Surely school or not is irrelevant - how did this couple bring an unrelated child into the UK?'
ReplyDeleteSchool and home education are both relevant here for this reason. Every so often, some local authority will ask residents to contact them if they know of a child who is not at school. Some home educators get angry about this, saying that we must assume that children at home are being educated, until there is firm evidence to the contrary. Cases like this suggest that it might not be a bad thing if there was at least some record of children who are not registered at a school.
But wasn't this child kept in the cellar? If we don't know who is even in the country such records are useless!
ReplyDeleteThe girl was brought into the country on a passport that stated she was aged 20 at the time of entry. Border officials waved her through. Even if local education authorities had inquired, what was to stop her abusers from presenting the same "evidence" of her age?
ReplyDeleteElizabeth