An artist and campaigner who was bullied at school says she is not surprised by a report that almost half of ethnic minority students in Northern Ireland have been victims of racist bullying and harassment. Njambi Njoroge says parents come to her to tell her their children are facing similar experiences in school. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) highlighted concerns about a “significant recent increase” in racist attacks and specifically cited “firebombing against businesses owned by people with a migration background in Belfast”.
Ms Njoroge, who is preparing to speak in one school to help teachers tackle the issue of bullying, says that when she was at school she didn’t feel the need to speak up about the racist experiences she and her friends were having because they weren’t taken seriously. “It’s just something that you decided to accept in school,” she says, adding that she doesn’t know if she could see herself raising a family in Northern Ireland.
The ECRI report calls for mandatory teaching of Black history and “Roma, ‘Gypsy’ and Traveller history or decolonisation” in schools. The report also recommended a national “LGBTI action plan”, part of teacher training on LGBTI issues, and mandatory Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE). The report’s findings are based on a visit to Northern Ireland by commission members, documentary analyses, and confidential dialogue with the authorities.
The report also describes the appearance of an increasing number of anti-immigrant graffiti and signs and threats in Belfast as a worrying development. The body also claims that police has been reluctant to investigate racist attacks “effectively for fear of upsetting the fragile peace prevailing between different paramilitary groups”
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