The Hindu : International / India & World : Sikh woman soldier alleges racial abuse in U.K.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 16, 2005

International

International - India & World

Sikh woman soldier alleges racial abuse in U.K.

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MARCH 15. A woman Sikh soldier has sued the British army for alleged racial harassment and discrimination which, she claims, left her "emotionally and mentally deranged.''

Jinder Moore, 39, has alleged that she was told by one officer to "stick to her own kind'' when she was dating a white colleague whom she later married. In a complaint to the employment tribunal, seeking compensation from the army, she said she suffered a "catalogue of victimisation, discrimination, harassment and abuse.''

Ms. Moore, who has been with the army for 21 years, said that she was so distraught that she had to be put on medication. She said that after she married her white colleague, Major Moore, he was deliberately posted abroad to cause tension in her family life.

"I believe that the officers involved [in his posting] believed that our inter-racial relationship should be stopped and that by keeping us apart Major Moore might lose interest, despite being the father of my child,'' she said.

Ms. Moore, who joined the army at the age of 18, also complained of sexual discrimination claiming that during her maternity leave she was told that she would have to take up a more menial job on her return. Her career, she claimed, began to suffer after she complained about the way she was being treated.

Describing her mental state at the time, she said: "I constantly worried what more might be done to me or my family and I started suffering from panic attacks.''

All the officers she has named in her complaint have denied the allegations.

Bullying

In a separate development, a high-power parliamentary committee highlighted a culture of "bullying'' in the army. The committee, which investigated complaints of bullying after the mysterious deaths of four young recruits between 1995 and 2002 at a training centre in Surrey, said in its report: "The assertion that the armed forces does not tolerate bullying does not sit well with the levels of bullying the Ministry of Defence acknowledge.''

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