Lord Warner, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG), has today called for urgent action over practices in some extreme faith-based schools that could be defined as child abuse. Speaking during the House of Lords debate on the role of religion or belief in public life, Lord Warner claimed children in closed homes and communities receiving narrow, distorted and indoctrinating educations deserve better protection; as a public policy issue this must start with a debate that ‘does not shelter behind a screen of liberal tolerance of personal freedom of religious belief’.
Lord Warner spoke of the recent meeting of the APPHG which heard from the original ‘Trojan Horse’ whistleblower and former students of a Charedi Jewish school and an Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) school. At the meeting, parliamentarians from all parties were reportedly shocked to learn what goes on in some schools in 21st century Britain in the name of religious beliefs, and the apparent inability of legal and regulatory systems to safeguard children from indoctrination and abuse. Lord Warner went on: ‘what was even more appalling was that to some extent this child abuse was being bankrolled by public money and apparently accepted by public agencies.’
Lord Warner informed the debate of the fundamentalist Christian curriculum of the ACE schools, widely considered to be creationist, homophobic, and misogynistic. Science teaching in these schools was particularly ‘scary’, said Lord Warner. The insularity of children in ACE schools was echoed in descriptions of education in a Charedi Jewish School. Lord Warner described how one young man literally had to escape his community at the age of 18 having had no education in this country apart from religious study and speaking no English because his education had been conducted in Yiddish.
Lord Warner suggested our legal and regulatory processes are failing to deliver the balanced and broadly based education children are entitled to, ‘not the narrow indoctrination of their parent’s religious beliefs enforced through closed communities’. In Lord Warner’s view, children receiving such distorted educations are being abused and need better protection, arguing that ‘this abuse is on a par with the kind of emotional child abuse that the state now intervenes on’.
Lord Warner’s contribution came after Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Falkner of Margravine spoke about the need for ‘radical reform’ of the role of religion in schools. She stated that if future generations are to live together ‘they must learn together’. Labour peer Lord Dubs called for an end to religious schools, arguing they have a damaging influence on both society, children’s roles in a community and the religions they represent.
As a pressing child protection, public policy issue Lord Warner made clear that debate must ‘not shelter behind a screen of liberal tolerance of personal freedom of religious belief’. Such tolerance he went on ‘does not in my book mean that it extends to abusing vulnerable children trapped in households that deny them access to the balanced and broadly based education that the law entitles them to’.
Lord Warner concluded by urging cross-party engagement, believing these child protection issues to be at least as serious as the challenges posed in the ‘Trojan Horse’ letter.
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For further comment or information, please contact BHA Head of Public Affairs Pavan Dhaliwal on pavan@humanists.uk or 0773 843 5059.
Read more about the recent APPHG meeting: https://humanists.uk/2014/10/23/parliamentary-humanist-group-hears-trojan-horse-whistleblowers/
Read more about the BHA’s campaigns work on ‘faith’ schools: https://humanists.uk/campaigns/religion-and-schools/faith-schools
The British Humanist Association is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people who seek to live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity. It promotes a secular state and equal treatment in law and policy of everyone, regardless of religion or belief.