Saturday, June 28, 2008

White children are much more likely to be bullied than any other ethnic group in Britain

Two thirds of children from white families say they had been bullied in the last three years but less than half of children of Indian origin make the same assertion. Anti-bullying campaigners say white children are now in the minority in some areas raising their chances of being bullied. Claude Knights, director of anti-bullying charity Kidscape, said:“More and more we’re hearing that in some cities it isn't the usual isolation of ethnic groups, suddenly we have got statistics that show we have got a larger number of white young people being bullied. In some cities there’s a dislocation of certain white children. So many cultures around them are being celebrated but where’s their place? There’s been such an attempt that you don’t forget what has come in to the system that what was there already has been forgotten.” This isolation makes children feel “different” she said, and was likely to lead to them being bullied. Six in ten children of black Caribbean origin said they had experienced bullying in the last three years, according to research into 16-year-olds by the Department for Children Schools and Families(DCSF). The results indicated that 58% of children from Pakistani backgrounds and 54% of those with Bangladeshi roots had been victims of bullies. Louise Burfitt-Dons, founder of the charity Act Against Bullying, which cut ties with Jade Goody after allegations of racist bullying against Indian actress Shilpa Shetty on Big Brother, said: “Normally all you hear about is bullying with racial groups being discriminated against. Whites are becoming more aggressive than they used to be as a result of trying to integrate into a new society norm that is so aggressive. They have changed the way they behave in order to survive.”

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