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00:00The United Kingdom, where a survey published this week reports multiple cases of school librarians
00:06being asked to remove books dealing with LGBTQ themes and characters.
00:11The data comes from the non-profit Index on Censorship and France24's Catherine
00:17Hadier-Clifford has been looking into this, she's with me now.
00:20Cathy, tell us first of all about the survey's findings.
00:23So the Index on Censorship found that 28 of 53 UK school librarians who responded to the study,
00:29that's 53 percent, reported being asked to remove books.
00:34Now over half of these removal requests came from parents, often from isolated requests from
00:40parents, and more than half of the cases resulted in the books being ultimately
00:45removed from the school library's shelves.
00:48Many of the incidents involved books with LGBTQ plus themes and characters,
00:53and also some seemed to have content that was too sexual or too violent.
00:59The vast majority of librarians who took part in the study asked to do so anonymously,
01:03and some described feeling threatened, intimidated,
01:06or even fearing losing their jobs if they didn't comply with these book bans.
01:11Okay, so the librarians are speaking anonymously,
01:13but do we know what kinds of titles are causing offence here?
01:17Yeah, so some of the books cited most commonly affected included
01:23This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson,
01:26Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love,
01:28and this one aimed perhaps at younger children, ABC Pride.
01:35Now we've seen some reaction to these findings in the press.
01:39The School Library Association in the UK emphasised the importance of resources
01:43like these which are specifically aimed at children and young people
01:48as opposed to perhaps young people then being left to look for unfiltered information online.
01:57Meanwhile, LGBTQ plus rights groups have flagged really the importance of representation
02:04and inclusion in young adult literature to avoid feelings of shame and isolation
02:10around sexuality at a young age.
02:12Right, Cathy, and viewers may be interested to know
02:16Right, Cathy, and viewers may be aware of this phenomenon in the United States.
02:20It's something that we've heard a little bit about before.
02:23How different is what we see in the US and in the UK?
02:27Yes, so censorship in US schools and libraries reached record highs last year,
02:31with the American Library Association documenting some 4,240 book titles targeted.
02:38So this is a phenomenon documented on a much larger scale.
02:43It's important to note that the UK survey comes from a small overall sample.
02:48There's no equivalent documentation system in the UK for now to the one in the US.
02:54So though the survey was widely distributed, only 53 school librarians chose to take part.
03:01The UK investigation also pointed to more coordinated organisation in the US
03:08between right-wing Christian groups and politicians.
03:13Whereas in the UK, while some may have been inspired by discourse by US groups online,
03:20and some librarians described a Christian ethos in their schools,
03:24behind their school's attitude to these topics,
03:27the majority of complaints did come from parents acting alone.
03:32Also, the book bans in the US targeted not just LGBTQ plus themes,
03:36but also very commonly books dealing with race and racism.
03:41All right, well, thanks for bringing all of that to our attention.
03:43Catherine, Khadija Clifford for us there.