Rebooted Prevent fails to hit the spot

by NADEEM BADSHAH

WOMEN’S VOICES BEING ‘SIDELINED’

WOMEN’S groups are being shunned in the fight to tackle extremism in Britain, campaigners have claimed.

They have said the government’s Prevent strate­gy to address radicalisation is failing after research showed more than 95 per cent of programmes re­main ineffective.

The study revealed failures in the approach in schools, youth centres, sports clubs and English-language classes. Out of 33 schemes examined, re­searchers from The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) found only two were effective.

It comes after the Jan Trust charity, which tackles extremism, run by 7/7 survivor Sajda Mughal, said its funding has been cut by the Home Office.

Hanif Qadir runs the Active Change Foundation in London, which helps to guide young people away from extremism. Its government funding was stopped in 2016.

He told Eastern Eye: “Policymakers have changed their approach to Prevent – it is more hostile to communities than before.

“We had difficulties before, we were engaging with young people who were talking about foreign policy like Palestine and Syria and wanted segre­gated rooms for religious reasons, we were told that was a no-no.

“Prevent is failing, women’s voices are being marginalised, they are not engaging with the right people.

“We were asked to provide information about individuals, we can’t breach confidential data.

“You have to report individuals of concern to the authorities, but you also need space to mentor them instead.”

Qadir, who has mentored 120 people at high risk of being radicalised, added: “We had some funding from Google but had to reduce our team from 24 to three. We are on the verge of collapse.

“The organisations funded now are more liberal, the government thought we were too conservative.”

Prevent was introduced after the London Under­ground and bus bombings in the capital in July 2005 to deal with threats, including Islamist and far-right extremism. The programme was expanded in 2015 with schools, NHS trusts, prisons and local authorities legally required to report concerns about those at risk of turning to extremism.

Mandy Sanghera, a government adviser, told Eastern Eye: “We need to rethink Prevent and learn from European countries like Sweden. We need to look at why some communities feel disengaged. Sadly, youth are looking for acceptance, if society continues to fail them, then youths will be at risk.

“We should never single out individuals or [women’s] organisations trying to raise awareness, we may not always agree but we must defend every­one’s right to speak.”

In June, home secretary Sajid Javid unveiled a counter-terrorism strategy called Contest, which includes MI5 sharing data with police and councils on UK citizens suspected of having terrorist links. Javid called for businesses to alert authorities to suspicious purchases.

But Contest has also been criticised for “sidelin­ing” women’s voices.

The Jan Trust, which runs a Web Guardians pro­ject to highlight online radicalisation among wom­en and mothers, said: “Women’s groups such as ours at the frontlines against violence should not be sidelined by the new Contest strategy.

“Shocking to see, especially as we lobbied for years for women to be included in this and pio­neered work on this issue.”

Dr Katherine Brown is a lecturer in Islamic Stud­ies at the University of Birmingham.

She said in the Contest strategy “women are mentioned six times in the document: three times in relation to their roles in families, and three times linked to ‘women’s rights’.

“This means there is little awareness of women’s roles as perpetrators or as recruiters. I welcome the inclusion of women’s rights and promoting wom­en’s equality but not mainstreaming this commit­ment within Contest programmes is problematic.

“It suggests that this is a matter for ‘other’ depart­ments and is not thinking about how the pro­grammes and policies of Prevent can support or risk undermining these efforts.”

Security minister Ben Wallace said: “I am inter­ested by the results of the BIT evaluation, but they do not show the full picture. Their findings will help improve future interventions.

“However, the single most important fact and the real proof of concept so far is that over 500 people who entered the Channel programme via Prevent have gone from posing a threat of violent extrem­ism to no longer being of concern.

“That successes has been brought about by com­munity groups delivering mentoring and help.”