Online resource gives a voice to victims of racism
THE quote above is from a case that was sent to a racist-incident reporting system, iReport, which was launched last July by the Irish division of the European Network Against Racism, ENAR Ireland. It enables victims and witnesses to go online and give accounts of racism.
“We designed it to meet the best standards for international comparators for racist-incident monitoring, but also to maximise its accessibility,” says ENAR Ireland’s director, Shane O’Curry. “So, online, the form is easy to use and quick, and the language is simple. It asks as few questions as possible, so as not to be off-putting for users.”
iReport allows victims to go into more detail about their case, and this may be cathartic for victims. The incidents range from the so-called ‘every day’, casual taunt, such as name-calling, to physical violence. Unsurprisingly, due to its population, Dublin had by far the most cases of reported racist incidents in the system’s first quarterly report. North Dublin accounted for a third of total cases. The rest of the country is by no means immune.
In the St Patrick’s Hill area of Cork City, Muslims who had been attending prayer, in the mid-afternoon, were attacked with sticks by men who had travelled by car to do so.
In Limerick, an Asian man had water thrown at him and was verbally abused by a group of youths passing in a car, while a Muslim woman was verbally abused in a shopping centre before being kicked. She reported the incident to the Gardaí, but she has lost confidence in them.
Of the 55 incidents in Munster, only nine were reported to the Gardaí; 35 were not reported to the Gardaí; and in the remainder the witness did not know if the incident had been reported to the authorities or not.
In many cases, victims feel either too intimidated to go to the Gardaí or think it is pointless. Several, recently published reports suggest that minorities in comparable Western countries are also disinclined to report racist abuse or violence. They feel that all avenues lead to the State, which they often regard with suspicion. As a result, an estimated two-thirds of cases go unreported.
With iReport, ENAR Ireland is hoping to change perceptions among minorities.
It sees the removal of barriers to reporting, and a willingness to give voice to the victim, as key.
“This system was designed with bridging that gap in mind,” says O’Curry. “People can use this system immediately and without having to go through a mediating body.
“Often, within minorities that are racially abused, you develop a sort of thick character around you and you don’t talk about it. Especially among black Africans, Roma and Travellers, their experience of racism is so everyday that it’s unremarkable to them, and they often wouldn’t bother reporting it.
“So, tackling that culture is quite difficult and what we’re telling people is that if they give us a story, we will retell it.
“We’ll synopsise it and get it out there, but we’ll also crunch the data on it and see if it’s information that we can use to show relationships between, for instance, name-calling and physical attacks. Ultimately, we need to produce data which strengthens our arguments to get better measures to be taken by the State to combat racism.”
While 46% of the incidents in Ireland were reported by victims, 35% of the reports were submitted by witnesses. That augurs well for what O’Curry sees as the ultimate goal of the site.
While the system is being brought to the attention of bodies such as student unions, local authorities and trade unions, O’Curry’s hope is that “this anti-racism tool becomes embedded in mainstream civil society” and that Irish society “becomes an ally in anti-racism”.
“My hope for it is that the Government, and Irish society, will sit up and take note of the depths of racism in Ireland and do something about it.”
Thankfully, it appears the vast majority of people in Ireland hope for the same.
For more information visit: enarireland.org
