National helpline launched for east and southeast Asian victims of racism in UK

Support service set up in response to rise in reported hate crimes since pandemic

A ‘Stop Asian Hate’ rally in London last year in response to pandemic-fuelled hate crimes (Sopa/Getty)

A free 24-hour national helpline has been launched to support east and southeast Asian victims of racism and other forms of hate in the UK.

Callers to the On Your Side service can speak to a specialist adviser, with long-term support available. They can also use the helpline to report incidents of racial abuse or attacks targeting other aspects of their identity.

Operators speak a variety of languages including Japanese, Indonesian, Tagalog (widely spoken in the Philippines) and several Chinese dialects.

The service will run seven days a week and was created by a consortium of 15 representative groups in response to the rise in hate crime directed toward east and southeast Asian people living in Britain after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The number of police-recorded hate crimes against east and southeast Asian people rose by 48.3 per cent between 2018 and 2020 – though the true figure will be higher as police said ethnicity was not always noted.

A spokesperson for Protection Approaches, the charity leading the consortium, said polling of more than 150 east and southeast Asian people found two in five were victims of hate crimes, though fewer than half of incidents of abuse were reported.

Kimi Jolly, director of East and Southeast Asian Scotland, an associated group, said: “People from east and southeast Asian communities have experienced a huge increase in verbal and physical racially-motivated attacks yet, up to now, there has been no support tailored to them in terms of language, cultural awareness and being able to record their ethnicity accurately.

“I know the impact of this first-hand. I’ve been violently assaulted, harassed and verbally abused. During the pandemic, I was asked to leave a shop when other people weren’t.

“I had sanitiser sprayed all over me on a bus. And I’m not alone in experiencing such incidents. Some people still don’t consider racial jokes made towards members of the east and southeast Asian community as actually being a form of racism.”

On Your Side was launched on 9 August and can be accessed on 0808 801 0393 or online here. The service is funded by the government’s Hong Kong BN(O) Welcome Programme.