A conspiracy of silence: child sexual abuse and cultural complicity in Britain’s Pakistani diaspora

This paper explores the systemic silencing of child sexual abuse (CSA) within British Pakistani communities, situating these dynamics at the intersection of colonial legacies, diasporic migration, and contemporary cultural and geopolitical pressures. It examines the limitations of official statistics and the
pervasive underreporting of intra-community abuse, showing how entrenched social, familial, and cultural structures hinder disclosure and perpetuate cycles of denial. Drawing on postcolonial theory, intersectionality, migration, and gender studies, the analysis demonstrates how colonialism distorted
interpretations of Islam and how the instrumentalization of communal ‘honour’ (izzat) sustains environments that protect perpetrators while silencing survivors. Importantly, the paper resists deflecting internal accountability onto colonial trauma or Islamophobia, emphasising that authenticjustice requires confronting abuse and challenging the patriarchal norms that enable harm. The paper
further conceptualises silence as a form of knowledge production, showing how patterns of denial, moral gatekeeping, and erasure shape what is acknowledged about abuse within families and communities. It advocates for survivor-centred, decolonial approaches to justice and healing, emphasising the reclamation of narratives to serve victims rather than feed prejudices. By foregrounding
critical self-reflection, accountability, and transformative cultural reckoning, the paper argues that only when Pakistani communities confront internal harms can they engage in effective collective action to dismantle broader injustices such as racism, Islamophobia, and social inequalities.