Race Bullies Rule The Roost In Classrooms

Bristol , UK , Oct. 18, 2005 (Western Daily Press) - Racist bullying is on the rise in Bristol schools, shocking statistics revealed yesterday. There were 443 racist incidents reported in the last academic year, an increase of 17 cases on the previous year, two thirds of them in primary schools.

Officials said hundreds more incidents were likely to have gone unreported, especially in secondary schools.

Name-calling and racist jokes are the most common problem, followed by racist comments in the classroom and verbal abuse and threats. And in six per cent of cases, children are being physically attacked.

White British pupils are the culprits in two out of three cases, according to the Bristol City Council figures.

More than a quarter of the victims are pupils of Caribbean descent, while Somalis and Pakistanis were each targeted in 17 per cent of the incidents.

"This is shocking, really shocking, " said Kayse Maxamed, who edits the city's Somali Voice newspaper. "Children don't come here from Somalia on holiday. They have just escaped from hell.

"We are very proud of the teachers in Bristol who have really helped Somali children learn and integrate. Every year we are seeing more and more children complete their GCSEs. It is terrible children should be abused after suffering the trauma of civil war." Mr Maxamed said grave damage was done after the London bombings in July when terror suspect Osman Hussein was reported on front pages around the world as being from Somalia . In fact, he was an Ethiopian who appears to have used fake Somali documents to gain asylum.

Maryanne Kempf, chair of St Pauls Unlimited, said: "It saddens me this is happening, and I am sure not enough is being done about it." Judeline Ross, of the Bristol Racial Equality Council, said the increase this year could be down to improved reporting. "People may be alarmed that there are any incidents at all, but it is hats off to the primary schools that they are taking this issue seriously." Mrs Ross said the Bristol Partnership Against Racial Harassment (BPARH) put measures in place to deal with a possible backlash following the London bombings.

Cllr Jos Clark, executive member for children's services, said: "We are not sure that in the past we had anything like a true picture of the problem in our schools and we are pleased our recently-introduced harassment policies and better systems for reporting and recording these kinds of incidents are now beginning to give us a better idea of the extent of the problem, although more work has still to be done to ensure accurate and consistent reporting across all schools."

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