NI is ‘largely welcoming to refugees’
ONLY half of adults believe Northern Ireland is a welcoming society for refugees, a report has said.
The finding is even more stark among young people — just a quarter of 16-year-olds feel this way.
The statistics form part of research on support among the public for asylum seekers and refugees here.
The report on public attitudes entitled ‘A welcoming Northern Ireland? Understanding sentiment towards asylum seekers and refugees’ was published yesterday.
It used data compiled by ARK, a joint initiative between Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast.
The data from ‘Life and Times Surveys’ recorded the opinions of over 1,200 adults and 1,100 young people from here aged 16.
It found that almost twothirds of respondents believe Northern Ireland has a duty to provide protection to refugees escaping persecution in their home country.
Support was strongest from those living in religiously-mixed areas and those living in urban areas.
More than half agreed that people from Syria should be allowed to come to Northern Ireland. Young people who socialise with those from minority ethnic backgrounds showed the highest levels of support. The report also found that attitudes to immigration are strongly associated with thinking that we have a duty to protect refugees.
Most respondents who believed immigration should be increased felt this obligation, while less than a third who favoured a decrease in immigration agreed.
Dr Lucy Michael, a lecturer in sociology at Ulster University, said the findings show that people in Northern Ireland are largely hospitable to refugees, despite ongoing concerns about racism and discrimination here.
She added: “This is an important finding in the context of increasing numbers of refugees globally and indications of emerging anti-refugee politics in the rest of the world.
“The broad support across a range of age groups, political affiliations and national identities is encouraging, even if a few small groups are distinctly unsupportive.
“It’s important that we understand the isolated nature of that hostility and work to ensure it does not overshadow the wider welcome.”
Co-author Dr Paula Devine from the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University added: “Since 1998, the Life and Times Surveys have provided independent evidence of public attitudes to immigration, and to specific groups such as refugees.
“These annual surveys allow us to look in the mirror and reflect on how welcoming Northern Ireland is.”