Labour MP calls for law change to protect children born from rape
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A Labour MP who has previously disclosed she is a victim of grooming, has called for a change in the law to protect children who are born as a result of rape. Natalie Fleet welcomed the series of local reviews into grooming gangs announced by the Home Secretary on Thursday, but pressed for further protections for those who have a child with their groomer.
In the Commons, Yvette Cooper said family courts should not be “used by abusers and rapists to persecute victims” and agreed to meet Ms Fleet to discuss the issue further. Ms Fleet told GB News in July last year how she became pregnant at the age of 15 after being “groomed” by an older man.
“I didn’t know we were having unprotected sex. I was a child and this is statutory rape,” the Bolsover MP said at the time. In an emotional address to Parliament on Thursday, Ms Fleet described the experience of a woman who is being prevented from speaking out after being threatened by her groomer.
She told MPs: “I welcome this action from a Government that sees violence against women and girls as the national emergency that it is, with a Prime Minister, a Home Secretary and a safeguarding minister with records of taking action to deliver for victims like me and many in my constituency.
“Giving birth as the result of grooming is a story that far too many of us share, and there are so many reasons why children and the women that they grow into don’t speak out. “I want to share one particular story today, it’s about the victim that told me that the perpetrator has threatened that if she speaks out he will have access to her child, something he hasn’t done so far.
