Invisible Apartheid Leading to Socio-Economic Backwardness Among Blacks
Medha Sood, TopNews (Mohali, India), March 19, 2010
A study on the black community in Montreal conducted by the McGill University, has revealed that blacks still face invisible barriers that lead to their socio-economic backwardness.
A report by the Montreal Consortium on Human Rights Advocacy Training, led by Professor Jim Torczyner, claims, “Blacks continue to lag significantly behind non-blacks on every indicator of success”.
Statistics show that the ratio of unemployment among blacks in Montreal is more than twice as high as that of the whites. The average annual income of blacks is $22,701, compared with $34,196 of the population as a whole.
The condition of women and children is also deplorable. Almost 1⁄2 of the black children in Montreal live below the poverty line and 1/4th of women aged 15 years or more are single mothers.
Blacks also lag behind in the professional sphere. Even if they are armed with an equivalent or better degree they earn considerably lesser amount as compared to whites.
These figures seem to support the report released by the United Nations which shows that Montreal is one of several cities where ethnic Canadians face unbridled prejudice in policing, education and labor.
