Salford residents 'face abuse and prejudice every day' as city cracks down on hate crime

Salford residents ‘face abuse and prejudice every day’ as city cracks down on hate crime

By SophiaShaunak on 22nd March 2022 in News

Salford Council has commenced its plans to tackle hate crime by addressing issues involving all forms of hate crime, which are all to be enlisted to one of 13 panelists of the Greater Manchester advisory panel, tackling hate crime for each borough of the city.

Hate crimes can be motivated by a variety of different factors, most commonly: race or ethnicity, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, and transgender identity. The movement aims to highlight the issue of hate crime is in society, and how we can prevent it.

According to commons library UK Parliament police records, 114,958 hate crime offenses were recorded in the UK and Wales in 2021, whereas 53 percent were racially or religiously motivated.

The panel’s first cause of action will be to spread awareness of the issue and ensure that the people of Salford and Greater Manchester actually understand the damaging impact of hate crime.

Brian Boag, The LGBTQ+ council advisory panelist for Greater Manchester, spoke about the effects of Hate- crime, and what we need to do to spread awareness of this. He shared: “In the past few years, there has been a lot more incidences of homophobia and a big increase in transphobic attacks and transphobic abuse. I don’t know if it is getting any better, there just seems to be a lot more hate crime that Greater Manchester police are having to put a lot more effort into because it is becoming more prevalent. It’s not just physical violence, it’s about things like the gay pay gap, for example”.

image credit: provided by Brian Boag and team

In fact, hate crimes based on sexual orientation have doubled in the past four years. This month also commenced LGBTQ+ awareness month looking at the implications homophobia and hate crime, has on the community.

Boag said: “In city centres, there’s probably more tolerance, but again if you go outside, people are still facing abuse and prejudice every single day”.

Greater Manchester’s panel aims to tackle discrimination against minority groups and to promote inclusivity: “The idea is that the combined authorities in the Greater Manchester area have a sound response towards the diverse community within Greater Manchester”.

“We are tasked with going out and working with the local community on some of these issues and see what we can give to the Greater Manchester authority about how to do it”.

Boag is one of 13 members of the panel advocating for diversity in Greater Manchester and expressed the whole team’s support: “I think that’s the real commitment of Greater Manchester and it’s not just Andy Burnam, you know there’s a real commitment from all the local politicians to make Manchester somewhere we’re all proud of, where we’re proud to be who we want to be and who we are”

For more information about identifying and reporting hate crimes, click here