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by Agnes
Lasuba, Race Equality Officer.
This is
my first Annual Report as Race Equality Officer [REO]. I have
been in post for 7 months but this report will cover the 12
moths Work Programme: April 1999 to March 2000. Since the NNREC
was established with funding in 1995 it has been a singleton
REC until September 1999 when I was appointed. During the 4
years the NNREC Director Anne Matin acknowledged the findings
in ‘Not In Norfolk’ (1994) i.e. there are people living in isolation
in rural Norfolk, experiencing racist incidents and isolation,
who do not know where to turn for help.
People experiencing
racism need services and NNREC has taken steps to reach them
and continues to improve our outreach work. With this conviction,
a lot of hard work was put into tackling rural racism. Forming
partnerships with the District and Borough Councils, NNREC established
surgeries which decreased the burden on the services in the
city of Norwich. From this background which I also played part
in, I feel as REO I have a strong base to tackle rural racism.
I have taken a strategic approach to build upon this work and
to ensure a high performance is reached and enhance all the
targets indicated in the Work Programme.
This has
been realised as this year reported racist incidents in the
city have increased by 67% and reports in the rural areas have
increased by 61%.
Racial Harassment / Racial Discrimination (RH/RD)
This is a high priority area in the REO’s Work Programme where
50% of the working hours are allotted. During the year between
the Police and NNREC a total of 346 racist incidents are recorded
and 40 perpetrators taken to court and convicted. Below I provide
statistics on records of racist incidents in Norfolk according
to divisional areas.
Racist
Incidents Statistical Records 1999-2000
| Area |
NNREC |
Police |
Total |
| Eastern |
10 |
35 |
45 |
| Northern |
2 |
21 |
23 |
| Norwich |
67 |
140 |
207 |
| Southern |
6 |
25 |
31 |
| Western |
8 |
32 |
40 |
| Totals |
93 |
253 |
346 |
Note: NNREC
has provided advice and assistance to the majority of the records
under ‘Police’. We always refer complaints of RH to the police
as racism is a criminal offence. The records under ‘NNREC’ are
other cases, predominantly in education and housing areas where
people preferred not to involve police.
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