History > 2006 > UK > Community relations / Racism (IV-VI)

Slavery in the UK

This is the story of Somalatha, who is from Sri Lanka.
It is not her real name - you are about to find out why.
It is a story that most people will disbelieve could occur
in modern-day Britain.
Sadly, it is true. It happened very recently

Published: 27 December 2006
The Independent

Somalatha arrived in Britain when she was 29 with a family for whom she had been working in Jordan. Her job was to be a maid. She had to work 16 to 18 hours a day, for which she was paid £200 a month. In the first two years, she was not given one day off.

She was not allowed to eat with the family and had to wait for leftovers. If there were none, she was advised to eat onions and potatoes. If any food was missing, she was automatically blamed for it, or even punished.

Somalatha had to sleep on a sofa-bed in the sitting room, where she was disturbed by anyone who came in late. Friday nights were especially difficult since the teenage children would come home late at night and bring their friends, which would prevent her from sleeping.

Her employer deliberately let Somalatha's visa expire. Since she was without a visa, she could not run away. She kept asking for a letter from her employer so she could apply to renew her visa but this was refused.

Under current law, women like Somalatha have a way out. But the Government is about to close her escape route. Earlier this year it proposed changes to the law which will divide migrants to the UK into five tiers according to their perceived skills and the economic benefit they will bring to the country.

This system makes no mention of women like Somalatha. But immigration officials have told Anti-Slavery International - one of the three charities being supported by this year's Independent Christmas Appeal - that domestic workers like Somalatha will henceforth be tied to the employers with whom they entered the UK, with no right to change employers - no matter how abusive their treatment.

It is not the only area in which modern forms of slavery are on the rise in Britain. A law against trafficking for forced labour was introduced after 23 Chinese workers lost their lives as they harvested cockles against a rising tide in Morecambe Bay in 2004. But the trade in human exploitation continues.

Many of the migrant workers from eastern Europe entering the UK, legally, as part of EU enlargement conditions are being lured by gangmasters into debt-traps from which they find it almost impossible to escape. "The traffickers charge large fees," says Anti-Slavery's director, Aidan McQuade, "with the lure that these can be repaid with high wages earned in the UK. Fees can range from several hundred to thousands of pounds and the interest rates which are charged can be very high so that, in effect, they never get out of debt."

Somalatha was rescued by one of Anti-Slavery International's partner organisations, Kalayaan, which runs a community centre offering advice on immigration and employment law. But many others still suffer. A survey of Kalayaan's clients showed that 75 per cent reported psychological abuse and more than a third were physically abused.

Until now the law has offered some help to women like Somalatha, allowing them to change employers so long as they are in full-time employment as a domestic worker in a private household. But, under Labour's immigration crackdown, this is about to be changed so such workers lose the right to change their employer. Campaigners fear this will mean employers will keep workers on illegally, making them easier to exploit.

"It will mean they lose vital protection against violence, mistreatment and exploitation," says Kate Roberts, a community support worker at Kalayaan. "They will effectively lose basic protection under UK employment law - their entitlement to the national minimum wage, statutory holiday pay and a notice period - because, in practice, these women almost always live-in and won't take a legal case against their employer until they have, as they put it, 'run away'."

Kalayaan and Anti-Slavery International have begun a campaign to keep the law as it is - allowing such workers the right to leave their original employers while maintaining their immigration status as a domestic worker. It also allows them to apply for settlement rights after four years.

But the exploitation goes beyond domestic workers. A group of Polish workers working in a chicken-packing factory near Exeter was recently discovered by a trade union to be living in a house with no furniture. They were sleeping on bare mattresses and using an electric cooker with its wires stripped bare and pushed straight into the socket. Their gangmasters had threatened them with eviction and loss of two weeks' wages if they dared to tell anyone about their conditions.

The men and women had been recruited in Poland to come to England on legal work permits. Two men from an English recruitment agency went to a central Polish city to interview workers. They promised the minimum wage of £4.50 an hour, accommodation for £25 per person per week and lots of overtime. But the gangmasters exploit their victims' ignorance of the law and inability to speak English. They make exorbitant additional deductions from wages - for " worker registration" or "visa extensions". The Poles - several of whom were given the same national insurance number - had huge deductions made for tax, which were never paid to the Inland Revenue. They paid £40 rent each, although they were sleeping on the floor, and even though the legal maximum for rent for people on a minimum wage is just under £25.

Those who cannot be controlled by such means are threatened. Anti-Slavery came across two men from Vietnam who had had to pay £18,000 for their jobs in the UK. They came to Britain under a legal work permit scheme and were promised wages of £4.95 per hour. But when they arrived they had their passports taken from them and were made to work for two months without any pay. In protest, they tried to go on strike. Almost immediately, their families back in Vietnam received threats of physical violence

Such is the seamy underside of life for the workers we see in our motorway services, as casual labour in ports, working in restaurants, hotels and in nail parlours or doing our laundry.

Slavery, it seems, is alive if well hidden, in Britain, in the 21st century.

Labour's U-turn
 

* 1990s In opposition, the Labour Party pledged to legislate to end the exploitation of migrant domestic workers.

* 1998 One of Tony Blair's early steps in office was to pass a law allowing such workers to change their employer, renew their visa to stay and, after four years, apply to settle in the UK.

* 2004 In wake of deaths of cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay, Government passes the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act, a system for registering labour in the agricultural, shellfish and related packing and processing sectors.

* 2006 Under its consultation exercise Making Migration Work for Britain, Labour proposes to rescind the rights of migrant domestic workers. It refuses to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings.

    Slavery in the UK, I, 27.12.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2106018.ece

Aidan McQuade:

Why do we punish

the victims of slavery?

Britain has created a legal framework
which makes it virtually impossible to take action
against trafficking

Published: 27 December 2006
The New York Times

There are slaves in Britain today. Impossible, most people would say. Not so. It is just that they are hidden away. It is a problem which both the police and the Home Office acknowledge, but which is kept out of the political spotlight because of contradictions between the Government's attitude to immigration - on which it seeks to placate populist opinion - and its avowed determination to crackdown on people trafficking.

What do we mean by slaves? Anyone who is forced to work through coercion or deception, for little or no pay, and who is controlled by an "employer", usually through mental or physical abuse or threats. The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are at least 360,000 people living in slavery in industrialised countries. Two-thirds have been coerced into forced labour by people traffickers in a worldwide industry worth at least $32bn a year. This is plainly big business.

No one knows how many of these people are in the UK. There are thought to be thousands of people in Britain who are slaves today. Most of them are caught in deliberately sprung debt traps. They have been tricked into taking a loan for as little as the cost of medicine for a sick child - or more commonly to buy passage into the UK.

To repay the debt, many are forced to work long hours, seven days a week, up to 365 days a year. They receive basic food and shelter as "payment" for their work, but may never pay off the loan. Such unfortunate people are to be found in agriculture, construction, cleaning and domestic work, food processing and packaging, care and nursing and the restaurant trade.

British politicians are happy to fulminate about the iniquities of people trafficking. But they have created a legal and political framework which makes it virtually impossible to take sustained and effective action against the criminal gangs who undertake the trade.

After the incident in which 23 Chinese cockle-pickers in the thrall of a gangmaster lost their lives in Morecambe Bay, the Government made trafficking for forced labour a criminal offence. A licensing system came into force this year. And the Government is setting up a UK Human Trafficking Centre with a mandate to pursue trafficking for both labour as well as sexual exploitation.

Yet despite these positive initiatives, there has not been a single successful prosecution for the offence since it was introduced in 2004. Nor is there any special assistance available to people who are trafficked for forced labour. Most mystifyingly, the Government still has not signed the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, which would ensure that people trafficked into forced labour are provided with minimum standards of protection and support. More than 30 other European countries have signed.

Why this lamentable failure? A central reason is that the investigation of trafficking is fatally hampered by the UK immigration policy and the "prism" of organised immigration crime, through which trafficking is seen at the policy level.

For the police to have any prospect of catching those who run international networks, they must have the co-operation of the victims. However, when the victims have irregular status in the country, there is limited incentive for them to co-operate with the police. The police cannot guarantee them protection, access to services or an opportunity to regularise their status. They can only try to negotiate protection for them with the Immigration Service, which often attempts to deport victims whom the police would regard as witnesses and expect to be treated as victims of crime.

This is because the Immigration Service works on a quota system of deportations. So for immigration officials, there is limited incentive to stop the deportation of victims of trafficking, even if it assists police enquiries. This situation is likely to get worse, not better.

Under the Government's latest proposals, the number of deportations will increase from next month. This will further hamper the pursuit of criminals, for the victims of trafficking are even less likely to co-operate with the police if they are immediately to be deported back to the very countries where those criminal gangs still hold sway.

The result is a system whose priorities are upside down. Instead of protecting the rights of victims, the system punishes them. Trafficked people can be detained, charged or prosecuted for immigration offences such as illegal entry or destroying their documents, although this is most likely to have happened as a result of coercion from the traffickers.

What all this means is that trafficking people to the UK remains a high-profit, low-risk business for those criminal gangs who organise it. In countries like Germany and Italy, which have signed the European Convention Against Trafficking - and where minimum standards of protection to the victims of human trafficking now exist - prosecutions have increased. In the UK there has still not been not been a single prosecution.

This situation has always been unacceptable from a human-rights perspective. What is clear now is that it is unjustifiable from a law-enforcement perspective as well.

The writer is director of Anti-Slavery International, one of the charities supported by the 'Independent' Christmas appeal

    Aidan McQuade: Why do we punish the victims of slavery?, I, 27.12.2006, http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2105971.ece

Racist: A damning report on our schools

Official investigation leaked to 'IoS' reveals widespread 'institutional racism'

But ministers refuse to accept sweeping criticisms from experts

Published: 10 December 2006
The Independent on Sunday
By Ian Griggs

A high-level official report has found a compelling case that Britain's schools are "institutionally racist", but ministers are refusing to accept that conclusion. The report, leaked to The Independent on Sunday, reveals "systemic racial discrimination" in the country's education system, with three times more black children being excluded than whites.

The Government ordered a "priority review" into the issue last year. Its damning conclusions were delivered to ministers two months ago, but have not been released.

The report, written by Peter Wanless, director of school performance and reform, states: "The exclusions gap is caused by largely unwitting, but systematic racial discrimination in the application of disciplinary and exclusions policies."

But Lord Adonis, the Schools minister, is refusing to authorise the use of the term "institutional racism", despite being presented with a clear judgement that it was justified.

"A compelling case can be made for the existence of 'institutional racism' in schools," the leaked report reveals.

The report, entitled Getting It. Getting It Right, addresses why Afro-Caribbean pupils, in particular boys, are three times more likely than white pupils to be permanently excluded from school.

Every year 1,000 black pupils are permanently excluded from school each year and 30,000 more are banned for a limited period. By contrast it found black children are five times less likely to be officially registered as "gifted or talented". It weighs up whether "out-of-school" factors such as street culture cause black pupils to behave more aggressively in school. But it concludes that black pupils are disciplined more frequently, more harshly and for less serious misbehaviour than other pupils.

"While a compelling case can be made for the existence of institutional racism in schools, there is a comparatively weak basis for arguing that street culture has a more persuasive influence on black young people than it has on other young people," the report said.

The internal report supports experts who say: "The exclusion gap is due to institutional racism - decisions made by schools and their staff which have the cumulative effect of producing a racist outcome. It is argued that unintentional racism stems from long-standing social conditioning involving negative images of black people, particularly black men which stereotype them as threatening.

"Such conditioning is reinforced by the media portrayal of black 'street culture'. It encourages school staff to expect black pupils to be worse behaved and to perceive a greater level of threat and challenge in their interactions with individual black pupils."

The authors of the report stopped short of insisting that the highly controversial term be used, leaving the final judgement with the minister. "If we choose to use the term 'institutional racism', we need to be sensitive to the likely reception by schools [but] if we choose not to use the term, we need to make sure the tone of our message remains sufficiently challenging."

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said: "In the light of this work, ministers concluded that it would be inaccurate and counterproductive to brand the school system as racist. However, there is more that schools, parents and the Government can do to ensure that every child fulfils their potential whatever their background."

About 100 schools and 20 local authorities have been identified as giving the most cause for concern. Schools could be in breach of their duties under the Race Relations Act 2000 that requires public bodies to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination.

    Racist: A damning report on our schools, IoS, 10.12.2006, http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article2062498.ece

Institutionally racist:
Report tells how black children are being discriminated against in schools

Black pupils are three times more likely to be excluded than white, and five times less likely to be on the official register of gifted and talented students. Why? Because, according to a Whitehall report, teachers in England and Wales are unconsciously prejudiced against Caribbean-origin pupils. Ian Griggs reports

Published: 10 December 2006
The Independent on Sunday

The choice facing Lord Adonis was stark: accept that black pupils are more likely to be badly behaved or brand Britain's schools "institutionally racist".

One of Tony Blair's favourite ministers had been presented with the conclusions of a high-level official report into why black pupils are three times more likely than whites to be excluded from school.

Although couched in careful Whitehall language, it makes for uncomfortable reading. "The exclusions gap is caused by largely unwitting, but systematic, racial discrimination in the application of disciplinary and exclusions policies," concludes the report by Peter Wanless, the director of school performance and reform at the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), and two other officials.

"Even with the best efforts to improve provision for excluded pupils, the continued existence of the exclusion gap means that black pupils are disproportionately denied mainstream education and the life chances that go with it."

After siding with commentators who believe that the fault lies mainly with schools, the officials say in the report that the minister has to decide whether to use an incendiary term. "If we choose to use the term 'institutional racism', we need to be sensitive to the likely reception by schools [but] if we choose not to use the term, we need to make sure the tone of our message remains sufficiently challenging."

In the event, Lord Adonis ducked the issue, arguing that since the report does not baldly conclude that Britain's entire school system is " institutionally racist", the term ­ and issue ­ could be quietly shelved.

But now, The Independent on Sunday can reveal the unsettling reality of how schools are failing generations of black children because of unconscious prejudice.

In November 2005, ministers ordered an urgent study into why so many black pupils were being thrown out of school. The "priority review" led by Mr Wanless reported in the autumn. It finds black children are five times less likely to be officially registered as "gifted or talented". It also finds that 1,000 black pupils are permanently excluded from school each year and 30,000 receive temporary bans.

And the problem could be worse than official figures show, the report says, because of the existence of "unofficial exclusions", in which head teachers persuade parents to remove their children from school voluntarily, or simply do not report exclusions centrally.

Around 100 schools and 20 local authorities, none of which is named, have been identified as giving the most cause for concern. Schools could be in breach of their duties under the Race Relations Act 2000, which requires public bodies to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination.

But a key question is whether the behaviour of black children is generally worse than their white peers ­ or can the higher proportion of exclusions be explained by teachers' unwitting prejudice?

The report weighs claims that factors outside school play the larger part in the problem against those that say schools take the greater share of responsibility. The first camp suggests black pupils are subject to influences outside schools that cause them to behave more aggressively.

"On the face of it, this view is supported by the statistical evidence that black pupils are most likely to be excluded for 'violence against a pupil' and more likely than average to be excluded for 'violence against a member of staff'," the report says.

"The portrayal of images heavily dominated by the experience of black Americans has encouraged growing levels of aggression and a view that violence is a product of poverty and disempowerment. Such cultural factors have encouraged young men to posture aggressively as a means of 'getting respect' and resolving conflicts."

But the authors favour the second explanation, which suggests black pupils are disproportionately punished. They cite powerful evidence of bias in comparing exam results remotely marked against those assessed by teachers. When marked "blind", black children "significantly outperformed" their white peers. But when assessed by their teachers, the opposite was the case.

Quoting academics who say schools are to blame, the report states: "The exclusion gap is due to institutional racism ­ decisions made by schools and their staff which have the cumulative effect of producing a racist outcome.

"It is argued that unintentional racism stems from long-standing social conditioning involving negative images of black people, particularly black men, which stereotype them as threatening. Such conditioning is reinforced by the media portrayal of black 'street culture'. It encourages school staff to expect black pupils to be worse behaved and to perceive a greater level of threat.

"While a compelling case can be made for the existence of institutional racism in schools, there is a comparatively weak basis for arguing that street culture has a more persuasive influence on black young people than it has on other young people."

The report warns that focusing on "out-of-school" factors would imply that black boys are more likely to be excluded because they are worse behaved than other children. "This would be regarded by many as a racist viewpoint," the report says.

It goes on to say that if nothing is done to address the exclusions gap, it will give credence to the subconscious view that black children's failure in school, and wider social exclusion as a result of it, is "to be expected ".

But Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, said he believed the findings of the report were spurious. " Pupils will be disciplined for bad behaviour if they exhibit bad behaviour," he said. "In my experience as a head teacher my colleagues have always shown absolute integrity in how all young people are treated."

Mr Brookes said unofficial exclusions were often a good method of dealing with incidents without it ending up on a child's school record. "For temporary exclusions I have in the past said to parents that a child needs to go home and calm down for a bit but that's about having a good relationship with parents," he said. "In permanent cases, we have a 'managed move' which may well be a fresh start which is right for that pupil."

Mr Brookes said the question of whether in-school or out-of-school factors were to blame for the exclusion gap was a complex one. "There are cases where there is a clash of school and external culture which can cause problems, but this is rare."

Kemi Pearce is an advice worker for the Advisory Centre for Education, a charity that works with parents whose children have been excluded. She insisted there was a wealth of evidence of prejudicial treatment of black children in school.

"There has been a lot of research into how exclusions affect ethnic minorities more than the average for other racial groups, and that is reflected in the calls we receive," she said. "My gut feeling is that there are more black children affected by exclusions."

Julia Thomas, an education solicitor for the Children's Legal Centre who acts on behalf of children who have been excluded from school, agreed: " Some exclusions do have a racial element to them and Afro-Caribbean families experience a higher rate of exclusions than other groups."

Exclusions have alarming implications for society. Excluded children are more likely to commit serious crimes, to reoffend and to smoke, drink or take drugs.

Martin Narey, the former director general of the prison service, said in 2001 that: "The 13,000 young people excluded from school each year might as well be given a date by which to join the prison service some time later."

Excluded pupils are also one-third less likely to achieve five good GCSEs, 3 per cent more likely to be unemployed and, on average, earn £36,000 less during their lifetimes. In a poll of 1,000 black parents at a conference on London schools and black children in 2002, exclusions emerged as the top issue, above academic attainment and the deficit of black teachers. Some in the black community even view the exclusion gap as equivalent to " stop-and-search" procedures in the criminal justice system.

The report says some schools are doing well at tackling the gap and gives examples of good disciplinary procedures. It says strong leadership on race equality and behavioural issues is key, as is taking the view that exclusion is a last resort and represents a failure by the school.

Carron Adams-Ofori, a head teacher at a school in Hackney, recently won the Teacher of the Year award for her work with young black boys. "There is a disparity, but I would challenge anyone who feels it has to be that way. One thing we have done is to look at leadership ­ in this instance with black boys as leaders."

Despite the report's uncompromising conclusions, Lord Adonis has drawn back from using the term "institutional racism". He has done so partly because the Government fears a backlash from the right-wing media but also because ministers fear it would alienate schools.

The Department for Education faces an uphill battle in trying to address the problem because schools are hostile to the concept of race relations, a Commission for Racial Equality study found in 2003. It found schools were significantly less likely to respond to a survey on race relations than other public authorities and, of those that did, only half had set goals for improvement.

The CRE found that only two thirds of schools that responded believed race equality laws produced positive benefits, compared with 74 per cent in the police, 80 per cent in higher education and 89 per cent in government. " We have long said that there are differential outcomes for different ethnic groups in terms of achievement, especially in the case of young black boys," a CRE spokeswoman said. "However, the cultural outlook for this group is also a factor. The CRE believes black children need role models and, ideally, parents to play a more active role in their children's education."

The CRE said local authorities were in the driving seat with regard to monitoring in schools. "However, all state schools should have their own race equality policy to address such issues," the spokeswoman added. "Schools need to be proactive, challenging wherever appropriate with monitoring, exclusion and harassment policies. They will then be in a position to build an effective network with pupils, staff, parents and the local community to create a safe learning and working environment."

The DfES itself does not escape criticism of its commitment on race relations in its own report. "The response to requirements of race equality legislation from local authorities, schools and parts of the DfES ranges from grudging minimum compliance to open hostility," the report says.

The authors are so concerned at the implications of their own report that they considered releasing a sanitised version of it that does not use the word "racism", for fear of alienating teachers' unions and education authorities. But the report says any policy change might be difficult to enforce because schools with a bad track record will view change as an unfair and pointless bureaucratic burden and will respond by " completely ignoring it".

A significant number, if not a "majority", of schools and local authorities, it is feared, will drag their feet over reform. "There is a danger that a policy will be met by a 'box-ticking' approach to indicate minimum compliance or result... in schools doing something but not relating their efforts to a tangible reduction in the exclusions gap," the report says.

Ms Pearce said teachers needed to be more aware of how they interact with pupils. "There is good guidance out there on avoiding discrimination on grounds of race but the question is, has the school taken action?" She added: "Schools can have a policy but is it in the 'hearts and minds' of the school? It's a huge obstacle to achieving fairness in terms of exclusions."

The report recommends a campaign aimed at the entire school community to address the question of how black children are treated. It says the 20 worst-performing local authorities and 100 worst-performing schools for exclusion gaps must be supported to change their attitudes towards black pupils.

A variety of strategies, including targeting pupils at risk of exclusion with support services such as mentoring, and improving discipline techniques, are to be considered.

It calls for a "much more robust response from Ofsted", the school inspection body, to bring about change in the worst performers. With this support, the report says, the exclusion gap could be closed by 2010.

"The report shown to ministers earlier in the year did not conclude that there was institutional racism in the school system," a DfES spokesman said. "In the light of this detailed work, ministers concluded that it would be inaccurate and counter-productive to brand the school system as racist. However, there is much more that schools, parents and the Government can do to ensure that every child fulfils their potential, whatever their background."

The NUT said it had undertaken work in the area of black children's achievement. "We have taken strides to tackle institutional racism and instil positive attitudes in schools," said John Bangs, the head of education for the union. "Schools are actively targeting areas of under-achievement, but I don't think the situation is perfect at all."

Mr Bangs agreed that there were cases of subconscious prejudice on behalf of teachers in some schools. "I think we may have to concede there may be such cases," he said.

He also said the evidence that black boys were five times less likely to be identified as gifted and talented was more of a class issue. "You could apply this statistic just as easily to white, working-class boys."

As for the exclusions gap, Mr Bangs said there were complex reasons for this, including out-of-school factors such as street culture. "We have to raise aspirations of young Afro-Caribbean boys, and everyone ­ from teachers to the community ­ has to have these high aspirations, linked to practical outcomes... Nothing is perfect, but the question is, how do you raise aspiration? Because clearly it is a problem."

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, which represents secondary school heads, rejected suggestions of institutional racism: "I think schools are very racially tolerant places in comparison with what can happen in society outside their gates."

On the question of schools' failure to identify as many gifted and talented black children, Dr Dunford said: "So many of these children have very few educational advantages at home." He added that, in many cases, their parents took less interest in education than parents in Indian and Chinese communities.

Voices of experience

"I was happy in school... but black kids were seen as being different"

Oona King, former Labour MP for Bethnal Green & Bow

"It's not helpful to stereotype all black boys as failing - many are succeeding"

David Lammy, MP for Tottenham

"There aren't many black male teachers, who could be setting a good example"

Donna Bernard, GMTV Presenter
 

"I wasn't supported by my teachers"

Chief Supt Ali Dezai, National Black Police Association

"Girls find it a lot easier to get on without having a father"

Javine, Singer

"We learnt that if we did come across any discrimination it wasn't our fault"

Rageh Omaar, Broadcaster and Journalist

"Teaching black history would be an incentive for black children to learn"

Dawn Butler, MP Brent South

"I felt my teachers saw me as far more threatening "

Kwame Kwei-Armah, Actor

"Black boys' performance is due to institutionalised racism"

Courtenay Griffiths, Barrister

"Some of my best friends were racists"

Ekow Eshun, Artistic Director, ICA

    Institutionally racist: Report tells how black children are being discriminated against in schools, IoS, 10.12.2006, http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article2062500.ece

3.30pm

Tackle 'stealth racism', says CRE chair

Monday November 27, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland

Trevor Phillips today called for new powers to tackle "racism by stealth" as he argued that BNP members should be banned from working in the public sector.

The outgoing chair of the Commission for Racial Equality warned that racial segregation was fuelling inequality and the popularity of the far-right party.

Thirty years after the Race Relations Act was first introduced, Mr Phillips outlined the challenges ahead.

The prime minister's expression of sorrow for Britain's part in the slave trade should be backed by action to rescue modern-day victims of slavery in its backyard, he said.

Mr Phillips said that the trafficking of women and children from eastern Europe and Africa to Britain was a form of "modern slavery".

"If 2007 is to mean anything it must be atonement for the past, yes, but it must also be a platform to provide for the future," Mr Phillips, himself the descendent of slaves, told a 900-strong audience at the opening of a two-day CRE race summit in central London.

"A future of more racial equality, of less racial discrimination and real integration of all our diverse people."

Today's pressing challenge was to eliminate "stealth racism", which cost the nation billions of pounds in the wastage of talent and capability, and which Mr Phillips defined as "the racism that smiles to your face just as it's dumping your job application in the bin marked 'not white enough'".

Special measures were needed to allow employers to take positive action to introduce racial integration in the workplace, Mr Phillips said, hinting at shortlists made up exclusively of applicants from black and ethnic-minority backgrounds.

The Metropolitan police had already indicated that efforts to make London's police force representative of the community it served would take a century to achieve, Mr Phillips said.

New laws were needed to "crack the problem".

"Frankly some areas of employment will never stop being all-white without new kinds of positive action, including, I believe, giving employers freedom to exercise what you might call a community integration preference."

Pressed on the issue, Mr Phillips said that the CRE was looking at the success of the Labour party in introducing "unorthodox" measures such as all-women shortlists to improve the profile of women in parliament.

And he defended his claims - which have led to him clashing with the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone - that society was becoming more ethnically segregated, giving rise to the emergence of "separate and isolated communities" and fuelling support for the BNP.

Mr Phillips, whose conference was publicly snubbed by the mayor today, said segregation was amplifying inequality.

More than two out of three people surveyed for a CRE poll said that they hardly ever chose to meet someone of different ethnicity in their own homes, he said.

"Higher segregation is associated with lower employment, lower earnings, lower education participation and higher levels of deprivation," he said.

"If we are to confront the threat from the far right it is here that we will win or lose.

"Our latest findings show clearly that the secret of good relations between different races is face-to-face contact.

"But it's not just meeting that matters, it's the quality of interaction that counts.

"Our survey shows that people who mix socially are simply more racially tolerant," he said.

Highlighting the recent electoral success of the BNP, which saw a further 32 councillors elected last May, Mr Phillips said that the far-right party was on the verge of moving from being viewed as a political pariah to being seen as a "legitimate" political party, " a journey that the National Front never made".

"Surely the time has come to follow the example set by police forces and to question whether it is acceptable for BNP members to truly carry out the role of public servant."

Mr Phillips was appointed chair of a new, overarching, anti-discrimination body, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, in September.

Last week, Kay Hampton was appointed the new chair of the CRE, although the body will be disbanded and its functions passed to the CEHR by April 2009.

Mr Phillips said that the new body - which will be fully operational from October 2007 and will also cover gender, religion, sexual orientation and disabilities - would use its new powers and resources to pursue the "national conversation" on race and integration.

Also speaking on the platform this morning, Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, said that shared values such as respect for the rule of law, freedom of speech, equality of opportunity, respect for others and responsibility towards others remained vital in today's multicultural society.

"These are values that need to be fought for just as they were 200 years ago when the slave trade was in its last year," she said.

Tackle 'stealth racism', says CRE chair, G, 27.11.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1958302,00.html

British Watchdog Warns on Veil Debate

October 22, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:07 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LONDON (AP) -- The heated debate over veils that cover the faces of some British Muslim women is growing ugly and could trigger riots, the head of Britain's race relations watchdog warned on Sunday.

Britons are becoming increasingly polarized along racial and religious lines, and if they don't talk respectfully about their differences, tensions could fuel unrest, Commission for Racial Equality chairman Trevor Phillips wrote in The Sunday Times newspaper.

In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television, he said he didn't want Britain to suffer the kind of violence that exploded in the deprived suburbs of Paris a year ago, when disaffected young people, many from immigrant backgrounds, rioted for three weeks.

He warned there could also be a repeat of the rioting in several northern English towns in 2001 caused by racial tensions between white and mainly Muslim south Asian youths.

''Only this time the conflict would be much worse,'' Phillips wrote in the Times.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said some violent attacks already have occurred against Muslims in the country. He said some women's veils have been forcibly pulled off, mosques set on fire and Muslims beaten by gangs of men.

The debate over veils was set off earlier this month when former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, now leader of the House of Commons, said Muslim women visiting his office should remove their veils. A Muslim teaching assistant in northern England was then suspended from her job for refusing to remove a black veil that left only her eyes visible.

The issue touches on growing anxieties about Britain's diversity and the alienation of young British Muslims like those who carried out suicide bombings on London's transit system last year, killing themselves and 52 commuters.

Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair said the country needed to talk about how minority communities could better integrate into the wider society while maintaining their cultural distinctiveness. He called the veil ''a mark of separation.''

Phillips said he thought Straw's remarks had been polite and respectful, but he worried the debate had since grown ugly and rancorous. The commission he leads was created by law in 1976 to fight discrimination and encourage good race relations.

In the interview with BBC, he said ''what should have been a proper conversation between all kinds of British people seems to have turned into a trial of one particular community, and that cannot be right.''

''We need to have this conversation but there are rules by which we have the conversation which don't involve this kind of targeting and frankly bullying,'' he said.

    British Watchdog Warns on Veil Debate, NYT, 22.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Veil-Debate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Amis condemns Muslim extremists as 'miserable bastards'

Published: 09 October 2006
The Independent
By Guy Adams
 

Martin Amis has launched an attack on "miserable bastards" in the British Muslim community, accusing them of trying to destroy multicultural society by failing to "fit in" with other faiths.

Young men in late adolescence were being targeted and brainwashed by extremists into joining the "death cult" that was behind last year's London bombings, he said.

The comments, to an audience at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, came after Amis, 57, son of the writer Kingsley, was asked to describe his recent return to London, after two and a half years living in Uruguay, where his wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca, has family.

"When I come back to Britain I see a pretty good multicultural society," he said. "The only element that is not fitting in is Islam. Who else isn't fitting in?"

"In this country what's happening is that young men in late adolescence and early manhood have a period of self-hatred and disgust and thoughts of suicide. The idea you can turn this into world history is tremendously powerful."

The allure of a philosophy based on "the rejection of reason and embrace of death" is intense but shortlived, he said. "I think the absolutely critical thing is to see whether it mutates. Death cults do take on a terrible momentum. If individuals believe they can exert an influence on history, then al-Qa'idaism will mutate as we feared.

"To me, Britain looks like a multicultural society that's working, apart from a few of these miserable bastards."

His comments came as Jack Straw was isolated in the Cabinet over the Muslim veil row, with John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, warning that the controversy could inflame community tensions.

Muslim groups have warned that they have received a flood of hate mail since Mr Straw disclosed that he always asks women in his constituency to take off face veils before meeting him. The Commons Leader, who described the veils as a "visible statement of separation", later added that he would prefer that they stopped wearing the garments altogether.

Although Mr Prescott said he did not believe that the subject should become a "no-go area for debate", he made clear he disagreed with his cabinet colleague.

"If a woman wants to wear a veil, why shouldn't she?" he said yesterday. "It's her choice. It's a cultural difference, but it is her choice."

It was also reported yesterday that the Church of England has accused the Government of deliberately favouring Muslims in a drive to encourage interfaith relations. In a confidential document, the Church claimed that the Government's attempts to integrate minority faiths had backfired, leaving Britain "more separated than ever before". Written by Guy Wilkinson, interfaith adviser to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the report ­ which was leaked to The Sunday Telegraph ­ claims the Church has been "sidelined" and "preferential" treatment has been given to Britain's Muslim community.

Amis's comments follow his recent attack on Islamic extremists in an essay for The New Yorker. He has also written a short story about the 9/11 bomber Mohamed Atta. At the weekend, he also admitted having experienced a moment of "sanitary racism" on a recent long-haul flight.

"It was quite unsettling," he said. "I was sitting on an aeroplane with 349 Chinese, and it's really quite disturbing the way it comes round. You see them getting up or going to the toilet and you catch yourself thinking 'there goes another one'."

Asked about his famously verbose prose, Amis also admitted consulting a dictionary "about 20 times a day" and making frequent use of a thesaurus. "I use it as a kind of scansion dictionary," he said. " I'm not just looking for another word for big. It's more for times like when you need a word that means the same thing but has two syllables. Like massive, although maybe you need something that stresses the second syllable. But I'm afraid to say I do indeed use one."

    Amis condemns Muslim extremists as 'miserable bastards', I, 9.10.2006, http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/news/article1822165.ece

11.45am

Race hate message man jailed

Friday October 6, 2006
Agencies
Guardian Unlimited

A man who posted racist messages on a website in memory of murdered black teenager Anthony Walker was jailed for more than three years today.

Neil Martin, 30, emailed at least six comments to the website - less than a week after Anthony was killed with an ice axe in a racist attack in Huyton, Merseyside, last year.

The site was set up by a school friend of the 18-year-old. Posting under the pseudonym Genuine Scouser, Martin suggested that white people should celebrate the murder, that Anthony's family should be burned and made references to slavery and a "banana boat".

After the verdict, Anthony's mother, Gee Walker, said she was satisfied by the sentence and did not accept a written apology Martin had sent her.

When he was arrested in September, officers also found 33 images of child pornography on his computer.

Martin, from Maghull, Merseyside, pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to publishing material likely to stir up racial hatred and to making indecent photographs of children.

He was sentenced at Liverpool crown court to two years and eight months' in jail for the race hate crime and six months consecutively for the child pornography offences.

Judge Henry Globe QC, the recorder of Liverpool, told Martin: "The intention of the website was innocent, honourable and well motivated.

"You accessed that website and you abused its use. You posted highly abusive, insulting and racist messages on the site."

During police interviews, Martin admitted posting the messages but insisted he was not racist. He told the officers he had intended to stir up an argument on the website but did not believe in what he had written.

Heather Lloyd, defending, said Martin had no history of racist behaviour and that he felt "deeply ashamed".

She said: "He was isolated and living in a fantasy world, spending hours on his computer in his room where his persona could be as he made it, good or bad."

The court heard that Martin had also created an internet profile using Anthony's name and photograph, and that he also posed as a schoolgirl on teenage chatrooms.

Miss Lloyd said her client had written a letter of apology to both the court and the Walker family.

Speaking outside court, Mrs Walker said: "After hearing what he said in those messages, I don't buy it. I don't accept it. He had time to think about it and he did it six times. I don't accept his apology.

"Hitler started with an idea, slavery started with an idea, so it is good that this was stopped in time."

    Race hate message man jailed, G, 6.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1889311,00.html

Revealed: the racial and religious diversity which defines a nation

By Maxine Frith, Social Affairs Correspondent
The Independent
Published: 06 October 2006

The most detailed map of ethnic and religious diversity in Britain has been published, showing where different groups live - and how Muslim minorities in particular are at a disadvantage.

From a sizeable Sikh population in a Kent town to a Bradford suburb where 73 per cent of people are Pakistani; from atheist Brighton to Leicester's large Indian population, the breakdown provides a fascinating snapshot of 21st-century Britain.

The findings are revealed on a day when issues of race and religion are again leading the news agenda. The former foreign secretary Jack Straw said yesterday that he asks Muslim women to remove their veils when they visit his constituency surgery, because he feels "uncomfortable" about talking to someone whose face he cannot see.

In Windsor, extra police had to be drafted in following violent clashes between white and Asian youths. And a row broke out after an armed Muslim protection officer was excused from guarding the Israeli embassy in London, on grounds of "safety", during the recent war in Lebanon because he had relatives in the country.

The map marks the first time the country has been analysed not simply in terms of the ethnicity of its population, but also by its religions. It reveals diversity in some areas, and the absence of it in others.

New analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) of the 2001 census figures shows that the north-west London borough of Brent is the most ethnically diverse area in England and Wales. Ethnographers devised a "diversity index" - based on the probability that any two people chosen at random from a particular area would be from different ethnic groups, even if neither of them were white.

In Brent, the chance of doing so was 85 per cent. Just 29 per cent of residents are white British, with Indians, black Caribbeans and black Africans all heavily represented. That compares to Easington in Co Durham, where there is a 2 per cent chance, making it the least diverse place in the country. On average, two people bumping into each other in the street stand a 23 per cent chance of having different ethnic backgrounds. In some areas, more than 70 per cent of residents are from an ethnic minority.

For the first time in the history of the census, the 2001 survey asked people to state their religion as part of an effort to get a more detailed demographic picture of the world we live in.

Using the same diversity index calculations, the ONS found that the London borough of Harrow was the most religiously diverse, with a more than 60 per cent chance that someone standing next to you will not share the same faith. Mapping also showed that people from the same religions and ethnic groups moved to the same areas. Thus Indian Hindus tended to live in different regions from Indian Sikhs. In some areas, such as Leicester, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester, three-quarters of the population are non-white and non-Christian, despite the fact that this ethno-religious group accounts for 70 per cent of England and Wales as a whole.

Detailed analysis of ethnic minorities also shows how many are now second, third or fourth generation immigrants. More than half (57 per cent) of black Caribbeans were born in the UK, alongside 55 per cent of Pakistanis, 46 per cent of Bangladeshis and 45 per cent of Indians. The report also shows how, outside major cities, many areas remain predominantly white British.

Seven per cent of local authority areas are classed as being "highly ethnically diverse" - based on the idea that there is a more than 50 per cent chance that two random people will be from different backgrounds. Fewer - 3 per cent - are classed as being highly religiously diverse, on the same calculation.

More damning are differences in unemployment, overcrowding and other deprivation indicators. More than 40 per cent of Bangladeshi households are overcrowded, compared with 6 per cent of white British. One in three Muslim homes have dependent children but no working adults.

Black African Muslim men suffer most from the deprivation gap, with rates of unemployment three times higher than white British men. The new data shows that black African Muslims are also twice as likely as Indian Muslims to be unemployed. In turn, Indian Muslims are far more likely to be jobless than Sikhs or Hindus, suggesting that it is religion, rather than race, that is key.

Dr Jamil Sherif, secretary of the research committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "The issue of unemployment is extremely serious in parts of the Muslim community. There is an urgent need for bold policy initiatives in appropriate skills training and apprentice schemes.

"On a separate note, the ONS report highlights the ethnic and religious diversity in Brent and Harrow. Both local authority districts have good community relations and cohesion - which shows multiculturalism works."

England and Wales ethnicity
 

* White Britons make up 88.2 per cent of the population.

* 71.8 per cent describe themselves as Christian.

* 14 per cent of white Britons say they have no religion.

* Muslims make up three per cent of the population. Islam is the second biggest religion after Christianity.

* The Indian population is the largest non-white ethnic group, accounting for 1.8 per cent.

* Pakistani Muslims are the biggest non-white ethno-religious group.

* Black Caribbeans account for one per cent of the population.

* More than 60,000 white Britons are Muslims.

* One in three Black Africans was born in Britain.

    Revealed: the racial and religious diversity which defines a nation, I, 6.10.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1813592.ece