Racial discrimination in Australia: A third of young people report race-based mistreatment
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Racial discrimination in Australia: A third of young people report race-based mistreatment
Almost a third of young people experienced unfair treatment or discrimination based on their race in the last year, Mission Australia’s youth survey has revealed.
“This is a little bit of a wake-up call for us, isn’t it?” Mission Australia’s chief executive Catherine Yeomans said.
A total 22,000 young people aged between 15 and 19 from across the country completed the survey, with 4,000 teenagers saying they spoke a language other than English at home — the most common being Chinese, Vietnamese and Arabic.
When broken down, the survey showed Mandarin-speaking young people experienced the highest rates of racial discrimination, at 90 per cent.
About 80 per cent of Cantonese and Filipino young people reported unfair treatment based on their race.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people were almost twice as likely to report having experienced racial discrimination than their non-Indigenous peers.
“There are some conversations going on in our community, or some actions being taken against young people, that are simply not right,” Ms Yeomans said.
The ABC spoke to several young Australians about their experiences.
