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Report finds 10% of people from ethnic minorities in Scotland have suffered recent racist physical attack

A new report from the Center on the Dynamics of Ethnicity and BEMIS Scotland finds that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing ethnic inequalities in Scotland.

The finds that 1 in 4 people from an ethnic minority experience unfair racist treatment in their job or education, and 1 in 10 experienced recent unfair treatment in housing or from the police.

Of ethnic minorities in Scotland, 10% have suffered a recent racist physical attack. Black and Chinese ethnic groups in Scotland have particularly high levels of reporting racist insult and unfair racist treatment from police.

More than one-third of people from ethnic minorities in Scotland worried about racist harassment. The majority of people identifying as Black, Pakistani, Indian and Jewish in Scotland worried about racist harassment. Levels of worry about racism were higher in Scotland than in England and Wales for many ethnic groups.

"As Scotland's population becomes more ethnically diverse, it is even more urgent that inequalities between ethnic groups—which were also exposed and intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic—be understood and addressed," says Professor Bridget Byrne, director of the University's Center on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE).

The report is produced by CoDE working in collaboration with BEMIS, the national umbrella body supporting the development of the Ethnic Minorities Voluntary Sector in Scotland.

"[T]his EVENS Report becomes a crucial framework that will be important to future researchers and to the archive of experiences of people during the pandemic period. We all must enhance collaboration and progress our serious efforts to ensure social, economic and cultural justice are the backbone of future race equality work: we must tackle poverty, employment, housing and health inequalities if we are to create an environment in which all of Scotland's people can realize their potential," says Rami Ousta, chief executive officer at BEMIS.

The report is based on data from Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS), the largest and most comprehensive survey to document the lives of ethnic and religious minorities in Britain during the pandemic.