'Deeply upsetting' to hear 12-year-old girl victim of a violent sectarian attack in the city centre'

Foyleside People Before Profit councillor, Shaun Harkin, has said it was "deeply upsetting to hear reports that a 12-year-old girl was the victim of a violent sectarian attack in the city centre".

Cllr Harkin added: "We send the girl and her family our solidarity It's deeply troubling that other young children would do this. 

"But children are not responsible for sectarianism that everyday engulfs our lives, and theirs. We should be furious at those at top of our society who are responsible for legitimising, prolonging and inciting sectarian division and sectarian tension over the last 25 years. 

"It's not the fault of children that 94% of them continue to attend segregated schools and live in separated communities. We were told the Good Friday Agreement would lay the basis for eradicating sectarian division. Instead, it has been  institutionalised and prolonged through Stormont and by locking people into permanent communal blocs.

"Openly sectarian organisations continue to be normalised. We were promised a new era of prosperity for all. Instead, there's 30% of families in Derry trapped below the poverty line, and that's before the pandemic and cost of living crisis hit. We have growing numbers of children living in poverty as a result of vicious welfare reforms implemented here."

Cllr Harkin said the situation was compounded by the "cynical" decision by the Department for Education to cut funding for the holiday hunger payment.

He added: "This grant puts food on the table for nearly 100,000 children. 

"Our children, and all of us, deserve much, much better. 

"Sectarianism and deprivation go hand in hand. For more than a hundred years elites here have known how to incite one to maintain the other."

"Challenging both will happen when divided communities come together to tackle inequality."