The attacks carried out between 2005 and 2009 on Indian students studying in Australia should not be construed as an evidence of racism, a study has insisted. The attacks had previously created a diplomatic row between India and Australia.
Indians studying in Australia, as well as other foreign students, were “less likely or as likely to be victims of physical assaults and other theft” than Australia’s population in general, a report released by the Canberra-based Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) reported on the nature and extent of attacks against international students.
In 2009, the rate of robbery victimisation among male Indian students in some jurisdictions was higher than the corresponding state average for the reference Australian population—a finding that was consistent for most years since 2005. Chinese male students were also at a higher risk of victimisation compared with state averages in some jurisdictions, as were Indian female students, the study found.
Incidentally, the Indian government had conducted its own study in 2009, and had concluded that 23 incidents had involved racial overtones. The attacks had dominated Indian headlines for months.
The study, ‘Crimes against international students in Australia: 2005–09′, was conducted by AIC in consultation with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC). The researchers matched visa records of more than 400,000 international students with police records.
Data was analysed for student visa holders from the five countries with the largest student populations living in Australia between 2005 and 2009—India, the People’s Republic of China, South Korea, the United States, and Malaysia. A total of 496,902 individuals were identified in the DIAC database.
Like assault, the nature of robbery was generally consistent between the countries and followed patterns consistent with the general Australian population. For international students:
* almost two in every three robberies (63 per cent) occurred in an unspecified location on the street or in an open space;
* 18 per cent occurred at a commercial (retail) location;
* 9 per cent on or near public transport; and
* 4 per cent at a residential location.
Robberies recorded against Indian students were significantly more likely (25 per cent) to have occurred in commercial (retail) locations and more detailed analysis found that of these cases, almost two in three occurred at service/petrol stations.
In comparison, only 12 per cent of Chinese students who were robbed at a commercial location were robbed at a service or petrol station; they were more likely than Indian students to have been robbed at a shop or store (39 per cent vs 12 per cent) and slightly more likely to have been robbed at a 24 hour convenience store (17 per cent vs 12 per cent).
Overall, international students experienced incidents of physical assault at significantly lower rates than in the general population in each state/territory jurisdiction in 2009. This was true for most nationalities in most jurisdictions and was a generally consistent finding for each year since 2005. In some cases, comparisons between students from different countries showed that for some years, in some jurisdictions, Indian students had experienced higher rates of assault than students from the other four countries.
In case of assault, there were significant differences in the patterns. Indian male students were more likely to have been assaulted at a commercial (retail) location (16 per cent) compared to Chinese (9 per cent), Malaysian (9 per cent), Korean (4 per cent) and US students (4 per cent). Similarly, Indian males were more likely to have been assaulted on or around public transport facilities (12 per cent) compared with Korean (4 per cent), Chinese (5 per cent), US (4 per cent), or Malaysian students (2 per cent). On the other hand, Indian students had proportionally fewer residential assaults compared with Chinese students.
Explaining the difference, the study noted: "This may be a factor of the reported dominance of Indian students in gaining employment in the service industry, often in service stations, convenience stores and as taxi drivers, over other international students due to stronger English language skills. It may also help to account for the over-representation.
"These industries are identified as being higher risk occupations that involve operators using transport and working at night; being exposed to night time economy (with an increased likelihood of coming into contact with drunk clients and individuals); and often involving work as sole operators and having an increased risk of crime, either at the workplace or while travelling to and from work."
