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Amanpour

The Fight for Human Rights; "Scandal of the 1,400 Lost Girls"; Imagine a World

Aired August 27, 2014 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: is the world losing its moral compass? The top human rights commissioner tells me the battle

never ends.

And later we hear from the frontline defender, the journalist who uncovered staggering abuse right here in England while police turned a blind eye to

thousands of young girls, gang-raped and sold into sex slavery.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): They knew so much about it and they just never did anything.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

As the West now weighs how to battle ISIS and eradicate the terrorist state that it's carved out of Iraq and Syria, the mother of another captive

American journalist, Steven Sotloff today went public, begging the ISIS leader to spare her son's life.

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SHIRLEY SOTLOFF, MOTHER OF STEVEN SOTLOFF, JOURNALIST: I ask you to please release my child. As a mother I ask your justice to be merciful and not

punish my son for matters he has no control over.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Sotloff appeared in the video which showed the brutal execution of journalist James Foley late last week.

Meantime another opposition fighter in Syria, another group, has claimed to have captured Quneitra, a border crossing with Israel, as that country

marks the first full day of a truce with Hamas in Gaza.

In all of these conflicts and many others around the world, human rights are the first casualties. For the past six years, Navi Pillay has been a

frontline human rights defender. As the United Nations High Commissioner on this issue, she's suffered the slings and arrows of all those who would

rather trample than protect people's fundamental rights.

And now just a few days before her term ends, she's issued yet another scathing report on Syria, condemning Bashar al-Assad and ISIS. And she

continues to hold to account Israel, Hamas, China ,even the United States of America.

From New York, she tells me that she has pushed her mandate to the very limit in what just might be the world's most thankless job.

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AMANPOUR: Navi Pillay, welcome to the program.

NAVI PILLAY, U.N. HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: Thank you, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Your latest report could not be more timely with the reports about ISIS.

You paint a very brutal picture of this group which, as we know, is barbaric and has beheaded in public an American journalist.

PILLAY: This group is committing huge atrocities against men, women and children, large number -- thousands of people killed and injured.

I'm also concerned by the fact that children are being used in siege positions, that they may be very vulnerable to attacks, to be killed from

the air; very concerned about the abduction of women and girls, reports that they are being sold into sexual slavery.

What I want to say is that all actors, state and non-state actors, are accountable under international humanitarian law. But what I see here is

neither side is taking measures to protect civilians.

AMANPOUR: And you actually do hold the Assad government also accountable for continued use, at least in the spring of this year, of chemical weapons

despite now the removal of their official weapons of mass destruction.

PILLAY: Our recent report, which is being released today, Christiane, shows levels of mass atrocities that are over six months' period that have

really deteriorated, increased to a large measure. And the commission's report also highlights this factual finding on the use of chemical weapons

by the Assad government.

AMANPOUR: And mostly chlorine gas, is that correct?

PILLAY: That is correct, yes.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you also then about Israel and the Palestinian group, Hamas; as you very well know, there's a truce in place now. And yet your

commission has and will continue to hold both sides accountable for what you have called an indiscriminate series of attacks on civilians.

Do you mean that about both sides or about one side in particular?

PILLAY: Well, I mean on both sides. But obviously the acts of the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces have caused far more civilian

deaths and injuries to people, damages to buildings as a result of the shelling.

Umrah (ph) School head has given 35 warnings to the Israeli authorities that there are displaced people in those schools. And yet the schools were

shelled.

So these are all very serious activities, which show a disregard for international humanitarian law and human rights law, which requires

necessity, proportionality to distinguish between civilians and combatants. And this is why I say in particular that the act of the Israeli Defense

Forces amount to war crimes.

On the other hand, the Hamas and other armed groups are placing civilians as shields. They are placing mortars and rockets within civilian densely

populated areas. And those amount to violations of international humanitarian law as well, and disregard for civilians.

AMANPOUR: You obviously, the Israeli situation is massively sensitive; you obviously have received, as you yourself have said, a mountain of hate

mail; Israeli officials have accused you of, quote, "failing dismally" to protect the human rights of Israelis. And they accuse you of being biased.

How do you respond to that?

PILLAY: I invite the Israeli government to share their information with us. I've reached out to the government. And three years ago I went on

mission to Israel. And of course I'm sympathetic to the human rights of all civilians, Israeli civilians, who are constantly under this barrage of

rocket attacks.

But so I hope that they will cooperate with this commission. It's an investigation. It would benefit all sides to know the truth of what is

happening there.

AMANPOUR: What does it feel like to be doing this frontline work, trying to fight for the human rights of people all around the world, having to

deal with government leaders, many of whom accost you, from what I have read, in a fairly angry manner; for instance, I said what the Israelis have

said to you but also the Syrians. The U.N. ambassador called you a lunatic. Sri Lanka's media denounces you as a Tamil tigress.

Are you proud of these attacks?

Does it - does it mean you're doing your job properly?

Or does it hamper you?

PILLAY: I am supremely confident that I speak with moral authority, with my knowledge of international law, who created these norms and standards.

So these comments don't disturb me at all. There are still the other 190- odd countries who appreciate the work being done by my office because we assist them. They know the importance of investigating serious incidents.

And so we continue with our work. The positions I adopt are, in fact, acknowledged as correct by those governments.

AMANPOUR: You never got to China and you never got to the United States of America.

What would you have told the United States of America ,whose Constitution is based on upholding civil and human rights, but who you nonetheless

criticized?

PILLAY: I was deeply disappointed that my various requests to visit United States has given rise to no response. No country -- and particularly the

United States -- can claim to be exempt from the -- from complying with the international standards. And they also appointed the High Commissioner for

Human Rights. They should let me do my job.

They do champion human rights. But they have to look to their internal affairs as well.

Issues such as addressing racism, racial discrimination and suppression of freedom of assembly, Guantanamo, the use of armed drones, the assassination

contracts that have been issued, I feel that the United States is moving so far away from the standards that we require from other states, that the

United States requires from other states.

And this is what I would have reminded them about. And I also would have raised very pertinently the large number of executions that are being

carried out in various states, in the United States at a time when almost 160 states are moving towards either abolition or a moratorium of the death

penalty.

AMANPOUR: And finally, your experience, your life experience as a South African, as a -- as a colored woman in South Africa, did that shape your

mandate as the longest serving commissioner for human rights?

PILLAY: I'm sure it did in many ways, Christiane. Firstly, the experience of knowing what it is to be a victim and not seeing an end in sight and all

the small actions we took in the country -- and we valued international support. We know that voices raised against apartheid in our struggle

meant a great deal to us. And of course we then achieved success.

My other experience is to be persistent and be totally positive that you will win one day. And this comes from the various battles we fought in the

courtroom. It -- we won many; we lost many and won a few. And that continued to inspire us to keep going. And I think all of this influenced

me, my approach, as High Commissioner for Human Rights.

AMANPOUR: Navi Pillay, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

PILLAY: Thank you.

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AMANPOUR: And you heard Ms. Pillay also tell me about the vital need to protect children, those who are recruited into wars, sexual slavery and

other horrors. She was highlighting a recent protocol that allows children who have no other recourse to bring their complaints directly to an

international body.

Now it's a means of self-defense and self-preservation that might have spared hundreds of young girls right here in England, who were forced into

a brutal sex trafficking ring that is now scandalizing this nation. The Rotherham horror when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. Now when it comes to massive human rights abuses, there are the usual suspects, as we've just heard from the

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay.

And then there are the unbelievably shocking abuses uncovered right here in a bastion of liberal democracy, the United Kingdom.

In the town of Rotherham in Northern England, children as young as 11 were abducted, groomed, drugged, gang-raped and trafficked. For 16 years more

than 1,400 children were abused. Damon Green has this report.

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DAMON GREEN, ITV NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Abuse, violence and cruelty on an overwhelming scale. Social services looked the other way and

police ignored it. In just one town, too many victims to count.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The brutality was unspeakable. I can't describe it to you in detail because it may disturb some of your audience. But to

think that children were treated in such a way within the last 16 years anywhere is appalling.

GREEN (voice-over): Today's report looked at allegations in the years between 1997 and 2013. Over that 16-year period it's estimated that 1,400

children were sexually exploited, though the true figure could be even higher.

Those identified included some children who'd been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight and children who were threatened with guns

and made to witness sexual assaults. The report also said this all happened in spite of three reports between 2002 and 2006, "which could not

have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham."

At 14, this girl was abused by a man 10 years older, too young to realize that she was being groomed and exploited. But her social workers did

nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They knew how old he was. They knew he had been in prison. They knew that he could be a danger to other children as well.

They knew full knowledge of it. They knew so much about it and they just never did anything.

GREEN (voice-over): Almost all the perpetrators, like these men jailed four years ago, were identified as being of Pakistani heritage. But for

years Rotherham counsel, led by this man, Roger Stone, shied away from that fact, fearful of being labeled racist.

Today Counselor Stone quit, but no counsel officer has ever been punished, disciplined or reprimanded. Many senior managers are now working

elsewhere.

By publishing the report I've made it possible for their current employers to read the report, consider its findings and to consider the role that

employees may have played in the events as they unfolded.

GREEN: Tonight the victims of child sexual exploitation received an unreserved apology from South Yorkshire police and the promise that if they

come forward, even now, they will be listened to. But as this report makes clear, no one knows even today just how many victims there were -- Damon

Green, ITV News in Rotherham.

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AMANPOUR: Now none of this horrifying story would have come to light if not for the relentless work of "The London Times" and its chief

investigative reporter, Andrew Norfolk, and he joins me now from Leeds.

Welcome to the program, Andrew. Truly a shocking horror; we cannot believe it to be in the middle of our own country here. You had been reporting for

a long time before it went to this public inquiry. Tell me how that came about.

ANDREW NORFOLK, "THE LONDON TIMES": This began for us four years ago in 2010. I'd been growing concerned for a number of years, based in the north

of England as I am in Leeds about what seemed to be links between various small prosecutions that were taking place from towns and cities across the

north.

The fact that there seemed to be a very similar pattern in terms of the way men were going about grooming and then abusing girls and I couldn't help

noticing that there was something about the names of the offenders that always seemed to be a problem, which is that they were Muslim names.

And we eventually decided that although it was an incredibly sensitive subject, we needed to carry out some in-depth research to discover whether

this generally was a pattern that was not being acknowledged by the authorities.

AMANPOUR: And you came to the conclusion that it simply wasn't being acknowledged.

Did racism or the fear of being accused of racism play a role in that?

NORFOLK: Well , initially, nobody in positions of authority would speak to me or "The Times" at all. And not even at government level, charities,

police forces, social services, all the doors were closed. We did our research. We decided we were going to publish the story based on figures

we produced. And eventually doors started to open.

And the picture that began to emerge when people started trusting us frontline workers, to tell us of their frustrations and their stories was

consistently, not just in Rotherham, but across the whole of the country for two decades, concern growing about what was happening to girls.

For two decades, people whose job it was to protect children were instead regarding those children as worthy of nothing but contempt, as somehow to

blame for what was happening to them. And the men who were committing quite horrific crimes were getting away with it because nobody wanted to

prosecute them.

AMANPOUR: Do you -- they're getting away from it. Now you've made your report; there's been this independent inquiry. Certain perpetrators are

out there and known now.

Do you think that it spreads -- you've said you might -- it might be spreading elsewhere around England.

How big a problem do you think this is?

NORFOLK: I have to admit to being unprepared for the staggering figure that was announced yesterday in terms of Rotherham, in terms of 1,400

children over a 16-year period. But what was happening in Rotherham is happening in every town and city in the -- in England that has a sizable

Pakistani community.

And for four years, we have been asking for the research to be carried out to understand why that is the case. There have been some very high-profile

criminal prosecutions in the past couple of years because since we've started writing about this, there's been a real change in the way

authorities have been approaching it and tackling it, trying to protect the victims, trying to bring offenders to account.

But until we actually understand why this crime has put down such deep roots in various communities, we're never going to actually prevent it from

happening.

AMANPOUR: Andrew, you are saying something that is incredibly sensitive and I would like to understand, you know, why you believe that this is sort

of linked directly to the Pakistani community.

Obviously we see the perpetrators are of Pakistani origin; the girls are all white. Obviously local community leaders say it's got nothing to do

with our race or our culture. And this could happen anywhere.

But it's really important to understand this.

Do you have any notion yet about why?

NORFOLK: There are a number of theories. And it's really important, before we get into this, to make it clear that the vast majority of

convicted child sex offenders in this country are white men, normally acting on their own. That pattern holds true for offenses against boys,

for offenses against pre-pubescent children, institutional offending.

This is a very, very different model. And there are reasons, I think -- and I've spoken to so many people in four years about this -- you have to

look at attitudes towards the age of consent to begin with. The age of consent in this country is 16. The Kashmiri Pakistan, where the large

proportion of the identified offenders have their family roots, whatever state law says, whether it's tradition and, more importantly, religious

law, sharia, says that puberty is the age at which you can get married.

Now puberty in this country, the average age of puberty for a girl is 11 years old. The fact that this is a collective crime, that these girls are

being groomed and then shared around friends and work colleagues and relatives, has to mean there is not the same sense of shame to having sex

with a 12-, 13-year-old girl as there would be if attitudes were different.

There are issues to do with the fact that even now in this country so many Muslims, Pakistani Muslims, who have been born and brought up in Britain

are marrying somebody who has been born and brought up from their home area in Kashmir, which means that one-half of every marriage is so often a bit

disconnected in terms of building up a relationship with your wife.

And equally -- and it's a very uncomfortable subject -- and this is not Islam we're talking about; it's a distorted street understanding of Islam -

- there are attitudes to the non-Muslim at street level that say it's OK to deal heroin to kafir but not to fellow Muslims. And then in a similar way,

does not regard white girls as being as worthy of respect as the respect that would be due and always shown to a Muslim girl.

AMANPOUR: OK. Very briefly, on the flip side, why do you think that not a single person in authority has been disciplined for failing to tackle this,

even when they knew it was going over the last 16 years?

NORFOLK: That seems quite staggering to me. The scale of what was revealed in the report published yesterday and the knowledge that was held

over so many years by so many people in positions of authority, who chose to look the other way, who placed, what, having an easy life above

protecting the most vulnerable and invisible and voiceless children in society, that nobody has felt guilty of any offenses, of any lapses that

merit even the smallest disciplinary action? It -- I think that's something that the people of Rotherham are finding very hard to believe.

AMANPOUR: Andrew Norfolk, thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on exposing this extraordinary story and forcing the public

inquiry into it.

And the British home secretary is calling on the police chief to actually resign.

And after a break, we'll turn from the seemingly endless war on human rights from Yorkshire to Gaza to an obscure colonial war that lasted barely

more than half an hour. The road to Zanzibar when we return.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, some wars, like the conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Gaza, Afghanistan seem to go on forever. Now imagine a world

where one little known war lasted all of 38 minutes.

A hundred and 18 years ago today, the shortest war in history began and ended just off the cost of modern-day Tanzania. It was the age of European

colonialism and the British had installed their handpicked sultan, Hamad bin Thuwaini, to rule the island nation of Zanzibar.

After only three years on the throne, Hamad died suddenly and his cousin, Khalid bin Bargash, who some suspended of poisoning him, claimed the

throne. The British Lion roared its disapproval and demanded that Khalid step down. But when he defied the ultimatum, the fuse was lit.

And on the morning of August 27th, 1896, at 9:00 am sharp, British warships began to bombard the sultan's palace. Within minutes, the wooden structure

collapsed and Khalid fled through a back door, abandoning his 3,000 soldiers and servants to their fate.

Thirty-eight minutes later the shelling stopped and Khalid's flag came down, leaving over 500 of his men dead or wounded in the rubble. A new

sultan was quickly placed on the throne, one who was friendly to the Empire.

As for Khalid, he was finally captured in 1916 and sent to St. Helena, the same island where a much more storied emperor was nonetheless exiled a

century before -- Napoleon Bonaparte.

And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always contact us at our website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Thank

you for watching and goodbye from London.

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