Lies, damn lies and diversity ads

WHEN Transport for London (TfL) launched a road safety booklet for children, it was inevitable that it would include at least one Muslim girl in a headscarf.

Watch the BBC, or look at any official Government advertising campaign and you’d think that the hijab is part of our national costume.

So forgive me for falling about laughing at the news that TfL has had to pulp the booklet because it’s been accused of sexualising children.

Apparently, in their desperation to be inclusive, the diversity tsars at TfL didn’t realise that hijabs are only worn by girls who have reached puberty. Cue outrage from Muslim women’s groups. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

So far, so funny, so predictable. But behind the bigoted stereotypes of the diversity brigade, there’s something else, far more sinister, going on.

The organisation formerly known as Dr Barnardo’s has just launched a campaign against the vile practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), said to be widespread among Africans and Arabs living in Britain.

Yet the picture it has chosen to use for the posters is that of a young white girl. Elsewhere, a campaign against forced marriage — by the NSPCC and the police, among others — features a blonde-haired white woman with a gag over her mouth. The same people who have refused to identify child rape gangs as Muslim are desperate to prove that FGM and forced marriage are endemic and not just confined to any particular ‘community’.

These campaigns are not just misleading, they are downright lies. I suppose the only surprise about the TfL booklet is that not every single girl was wearing a hijab.