The United Kingdom government has launched investigations into racial allegations fronted by seven current and former Kenyan staff members of the British council.
According to The Guardian, senior executives were accused of racial profiling the seven Kenyan born staff. The victims alleged that they were subjected to unfair treatment through the organisation's procedures.
"The cases underline a repeated practice by white members of staff to constantly assign Kenyans as underperformers, inadequate, unskilled, unprofessional, and suspects, as the organisation abuses its procedures and systems to validate its discriminative practice," a letter claiming to represent the Kenyan staff read in part.
The staff also claimed that their opinions were not valued enough as opposed to the whites.
"But many former and current employees believe that there is a racist culture in the organisation which goes back many years. White people's opinions are given more weight than black people from Kenya," one of the staff told the international news-let, The Guardian.
The UK government, while offering intervention measures, pointed out that issues aligned with racism are considered critical and assured to take up the matter.
A British council spokesperson noted that they were waiting for all complainants to identify themselves for investigations to be concluded.
"The council takes all allegations of discrimination, racism, bullying and harassment very seriously. We operate in over 100 countries across the world and our values of equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of everything we do."
"On receiving the (complaints) via the letter, we immediately initiated an investigation. We are keeping avenues of engagement open with the author of the letter. The author has not been willing to be interviewed and has not yet provided evidence in support of the allegations," the spokesperson stated.
The aim of the British council, founded in 1934, is to improve cultural relations as well as educational opportunities.
