It has been less than a week since Afghan national Ahmad Mulakhil admitted raping a 12 year-old girl in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. The crime was first propelled into the news cycle over the summer amidst allegations that officials in the police and local council were deliberately concealing the nationality of the alleged offenders (his co-defendant, Mohammad Kabir, also an Afghan national, has pleaded not guilty to attempting to take a child, aiding and abetting rape of a child under 13 and intentional strangulation of the girl). The grim case is a high-profile example of the link between migration and sex crimes – and the way many of our institutions try to downplay this obvious reality.
