A screen grab of the attack on Ellie McClay in Derry city centre
Ella McClay says she was lured into the city centre on Monday by someone she regarded as a friend before being set upon outside a cafe by a gang, mostly girls.
Police say they are investigating the attack on the 12-year-old school as a sectarian hate crime.
Said Cllr Harkin: “It’s deeply upsetting to hear reports that a 12-year-old girl was the victim of a violent sectarian attack in the city centre.
“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.
“Compounding this is the cynical decision by the Department for Education to cut funding for the holiday hunger payment, the grant that 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.”
Tags: