It’s starkly evident that major ethnic and racial inequalities persist in employment, housing and the justice system. Black and Muslim minorities have twice the unemployment rate of their white British peers and are twice as likely to live in overcrowded housing. They are also much more likely to be stopped and searched by the police. We could also add to the list the alarming ethnic differences in deaths from COVID-19. The government’s pioneering ethnicity facts and figures website brings together in a single accessible format the hard evidence on ethnic disparities collected by government departments. It is a world-first, established in 2016 by former prime minister Theresa May, who pledged to tackle “burning injustices”. Critics could plausibly argue that disparities of the kind demonstrated by the website do not, in themselves, prove that racism and discrimination are the driving forces behind the inequalities. But, when combined with other direct evidence, it’s hard ...

Despite stringent provisions in the law, manual scavenging continues unabated in India. Manual scavenging is defined as “the removal of human excrement from public streets and dry latrines, cleaning septic tanks, gutters and sewers”. The practice is driven by caste, class and income divides. "One of modern India’s great shames is the official failure to eradicate ‘manual scavenging’, the most degrading surviving practice of untouchability in the country." - Harsh Mander. The number of people killed while cleaning sewers and septic tanks has increased over the last few years. 2019 saw the highest number of manual scavenging deaths in the past five years. 110 workers were killed while cleaning sewers and septic tanks. This is a 61% increase as compared to 2018, which saw 68 cases of such similar deaths. In 2013, the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act put an end to the practice of any form of manual cleaning, carrying, disposing or handli...

Claiming asylum in the UK should be a process of alleviation. After enduring the traumas of war, exile, and separation, asylum seekers should be met with a smooth procedure that grants full access to the information and support needed to build a promising application. Instead, many argue that the UK asylum system encompasses a ‘hostile environment’ with long delays and a culture of disrespect, preventing those who have already faced unimaginable horrors from rebuilding their lives. Out of the 26,547 applications for asylum, protection or settlements in the UK, 14,166 were granted in the year ending in March 2018, dropping 11% from the previous year. With Brexit creeping closer and a hostile environment immigration policy sending inhospitable messages to refugees fleeing violence and persecution, it will not be surprising if the 5% of global asylum applications currently received by the UK continues to drop. Awareness of the UK’s inhospitable system continues to grow following the Windr...

UNITED KINGDOM  Counter-terrorism laws continued to restrict rights. Full accountability for torture allegations against UK intelligence agencies and armed forces remained unrealized. Northern Ireland made significant progress on abortion and same sex marriage. Legal, constitutional or institutional developments The second draft Political Declaration on the future relationship between the UK and EU, published in October 2019, included less robust assurances around membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) than the first version. The Government confirmed that it intends to derogate from the ECHR before significant future military operations where deemed appropriate. The Scottish government built on its commitment to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, promising to bring forward legislation to incorporate UN treaties into Scots Law. Counter-terrorism and security The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 created new criminal offences ...

Exploring the mixed legacy of colonialism within the British Indian community, Ashna Ahmad discusses colourism, social mobility and the myth of a ‘model minority’ My mother and grandmother arrived in the UK having fled persecution in newly independent Kenya, where our family had been sent along with millions of other Indians under the British Empire. They had nothing. My mum tells me stories of her childhood: the fear she felt watching National Front marches pass her house, the tears and uncertainty when my grandmother had run out of money, the hurt from being called “Wog” or “Paki” in the street or at school. A generation later, I sit in my North London suburban house writing this article, having just finished my first year at Cambridge. As the story goes, the upward social mobility of British Indians such as my family is a perfect example of ‘bootstrapping.’ This is the idea that marginalised groups can become more prosperous on the basis of individual merit and hard work, subsequen...

  These are testimonies collected by Kavita Puri, the presenter of the Radio 4 series Three Pounds In My Pocket, interviewed now-elderly pioneers, who never thought they would have to live through such hostility again. “I don’t know what it is to be British any more.” This from a man who is a professor at a prominent university and part of the British establishment. So how did it come to this? For the past five years I have been interviewing the generation that came from the Indian subcontinent to postwar Britain. These early pioneers arrived with as little as £3 due to strict currency controls. They are now elderly people. I have watched as they have grown older, frailer, their voices weaker. Some have died. Their stories are an overlooked part of British history. It’s important to record them before it’s too late. From 1948 until the early 1960s, these former subjects of the British Raj automatically became British citizens. They came here for a better life, and to rebu...

There’s a common refrain that masks don’t protect you; they protect other people from your own germs, which is especially important to keep unknowingly infected people from spreading the corona virus. But now, there’s mounting evidence that masks also protect you. If you’re unlucky enough to encounter an infectious person, wearing any kind of face covering will reduce the amount of virus that your body will take in. As it turns out, that’s pretty important. Breathing in a small amount of virus may lead to no disease or far more mild infection. But inhaling a huge volume of virus particles can result in serious disease or death. That’s the argument Dr. Monica Gandhi, UC San Francisco professor of medicine and medical director of the HIV Clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, is making about why — if you do become infected with the virus — masking can still protect you from more severe disease. “There is this theory that facial masking reduces the [amount of virus you get e...