Why Speak Out & Report Racism
- To help make our community safer
- To stop it happening again
- To teach people that its not OK
- To get help and justice for victims
- To collect information about racist incidents to assist the Human Rights Commission and the Police to educate and make our community safer
- International Best Practice – UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, (ratified by NZ)
The Nelson/Tasman region is multicultural
The following numbers come from research in 2009 for the “Towards a Reporting System for Racist Incidents in Nelson Tasman” report by Debbie Kohner*.
- Nelson has third largest percentage of migrants per capita in 2008 behind Auckland and Wellington
- We have 48 different ethnicities or nationalities living here
- Our Māori population has doubled since 1991
- Our Asian population has more than tripled since 1991
- We had 772 International students residing in the region in 2008
- According to the report, more than 90 per cent of non European participants who have lived in the region for more than a few months had experienced racial abuse.
- 81% personally experienced racism
- 86% witnessed racism
- 39% felt unsafe
- Only 21% reported, but 80% would report if easy to do so
Note: Debbie was the author of the Research Report “Towards a Reporting System for Racist Incidents in Nelson Tasman”: Diverse Communities Speak published in 2009. Our community owes Debbie a huge debt of gratitude for her time and professional expertise given on a voluntary basis over many months.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King Junior