Australian Human Rights Commission Australia and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), Shadow report to the CERD Committee – 8 July 2010 security of person, non-discrimination, housing, employment discrimination and information. 89. Participating academics discussed the recent high profile attacks on international students in Australia. A clarification was made that not all attacks are on students and certainly not all attacks have been on overseas students. Many Australians of ‘Indian’ and ‘Sri Lankan’ ‘appearance’ have also been attacked. Participating academics noted that there is no official national data on racially motivated crime. There are also significant gaps in relevant national survey data, for example the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Survey and the Victims of Crime Survey. When considering how to determine whether a crime is racially motivated, participants noted the following: • • • • • • • 90. Participants discussed the vulnerabilities that caused some people or groups of people to become subject to crime. Indian students on average tend to have less economic security than other international students and subsequently are exposed to high risk situations. Participants cited examples such as: • • • 91. incidents range across a spectrum in some cases racism is a clear motivator for a particular crime in some cases racism is not a clear motivator but still shapes a crime in some cases racism can become an element of an existing dispute (use of racist language) in some cases motivation is ambiguous we don’t understand enough about the perpetrators we need reform around the collection of policing data. living in overcrowded and low income housing, often in lower socioeconomic areas working in precarious employment situations, for example having limited employment security and working late night shifts travelling to and from work late at night on public transport. The Commission notes the findings from Safety of International Students in Metropolitan Melbourne study conducted by the Institute for Community, Ethnicity and Policy Alternatives, Victoria University. 82 The Institute surveyed one thousand domestic and international students and conducted in-depth interviews with student representative organisations, community police and other stakeholders. More than half of the international students surveyed identified that they found the city less safe than they had anticipated. 83 A number of factors were identified by students as safety threats including: • • • • • lack of access to safe and affordable housing high risk employment poor transport options racism (most frequently risk factor identified by the surveyed students) sexual harassment experienced by female international students 27