The total number of Black children living in poor households in the UK have more than doubled over the past decade. (Photo by FT)
London, January 9 (RHC)-- More than half of Black children in the UK are growing up in poverty, while white children have far better living conditions, reveals a new survey, pointing to deep-rooted structural racism in the country.
The research commissioned by the Labor party, based on government data for households with “relative low income,” establishes that Black children in the country are now more than twice as likely to be growing up poor as white children.
The total number of Black children living in poor households more than doubled over the past decade, rising from 42 percent in 2010-11 to 53 percent in 2019-20, the research states. The Labour party said the unfair situation, portrayed by the results of the survey, was a result of “Conservative incompetence and denialism about the existence of structural racism.”
A UK government-backed report claims that British racism is in decline, however, it ironically shows the opposite, that deeply embedded structural racism, is as rampant as ever. Anneliese Dodds, the shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, whose office conducted the research, said the ruling Conservative party should be ashamed of its mismanagement.
“There is little wonder that child poverty has skyrocketed over the last decade when Conservative ministers have done so little to tackle the structural inequalities driving it,” she asserted.
“Conservative incompetence and denialism about the existence of structural racism are driving Black children into poverty. Labour has a plan to lift them out of it, with a new race equality act to tackle structural racial inequality at source,” she hastened to add.
The Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, has already committed the party to pass a new race equality act, if elected, persuading the government to tackle structural racism that has spread across the country.
The Labour party covered nine ethnic groups in its research and said Bangladeshi children are the poorest among all, with 61 percent of them growing up in poor households.
Pakistani children and Black African or Caribbean or Black British came second and third respectively, accounting for 55 percent and 53 percent of children living in poverty. Overall, there has been a 4 percent increase in the proportion of all children living in poor households, rising from 27 percent in 2010-11 to 31 percent as the latest figure.
Halima Begum, chief executive at the race equality think tank Runnymede Trust, termed the figures as “cause of considerable concern.” “These are not cyclical inequalities that are being flagged, but systemic shortcomings that must be reversed quickly,” she noted, referring to pervasive racist policies in the country.
In a bombshell interview last week, Prince Harry and Megan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, claimed “racism” was a “large part” of the reason they abandoned the royal family and the UK.
