GENEVA, June 14 (Xinhua) -- British government policies exacerbate discrimination, stoke xenophobic sentiment and further entrench racial inequality, the UN's expert on racism and human rights said Friday in a report.
Special Rapporteur E. Tendayi Achiume in her report to be presented to the Human Rights Council on July 8, cited persistent racial disparities in, among others, education, employment, housing, health, surveillance, interactions with police, prosecutions, and incarceration.
"The structural socio-economic exclusion of racial and ethnic minority communities in the United Kingdom is striking," she said in her report, based on a fact-finding visit to the country in April and May 2018.
Achiume said that Britain has a legal framework devoted to combating racial discrimination.
However, she said, "the harsh reality is that race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability status, and related categories all continue to determine the life chances and well-being of people in Britain in ways that are unacceptable and, in many cases, unlawful."
The special rapporteur said that her findings should not surprise the government, as its own data and reports, "including the Race Disparity Audit, the Lammy Review, and the work of the UK equality commission," substantiate the persistent exclusion and marginalization of racial and ethnic minorities.
"Reliable reports have shown that the austerity measures have been disproportionately detrimental to members of racial and ethnic minority communities, who are also the hardest hit by unemployment," she said.
Achiume said that at the same time, racial and ethnic minorities are overrepresented in criminal justice enforcement and underrepresented within the institutions that adjudicate crime and punishment.
"There is also clear evidence that enforcement of the flawed counter-extremism 'prevent duty' disproportionately targets groups on the basis of religious and ethnic belonging, in violation of their human rights," she said.
It had also transformed public institutions such as hospitals, schools, universities, and even the police into sites of exclusion, discrimination and national anxiety.
She said these were institutions through which the work of national integration should otherwise be achieved.
Achiume, however, welcomed British government initiatives over the past decade that have led to better data and more comprehensive reviews of racial inequality, including progress on issues she raised in her May 2018 end-of-visit statement.
