THE DIRECTOR of a group raising awareness of hate crimes in Bradford believes communities must have “difficult conversations” to stamp out the rising form of abuse.

Sofia Mahmood, the director of Bradford’s Empowering Minds, runs workshops encouraging mothers of all ethnicities to speak up and ask questions about different cultures in a bid to lower the rising number of hate crimes.

New figures show the number of abusive crimes has gone up by 17 per cent in the UK, but Empowering Minds’ sessions are designed to give mums the knowledge they need to speak to their children about the damage racist attacks can have on their victims.

In 2017/18, there were 94,098 hate crimes, an increase of 17 per cent compared with the previous year.

Seventy six per cent of these were race hate crimes and nine per cent were specifically religious hate crimes.

Ms Mahmood has previously worked with disaffected youths and victims of abuse and was part of Bradford Council’s Stand Up, Speak Out, Make A Difference (SUSOMAD) before setting up Empowering Minds.

Ms Mahmood has suffered abuse herself and, while she does not want to dwell on her experiences, she feels education is the best way to move forward to tackle hate crimes.

She said: “One of them happened in New York shortly after 9/11.

“I was wearing a headscarf and received a lot of abuse as a Muslim woman.

“Prior to 9/11 I hadn’t got that.

“I was coming out of my house after the murder of Lee Rigby and a white couple said to me ‘an eye for an eye, a life for a life’.

“I feel like when an incident like that murder happens it sparks something in people.”

She added: “We deliver workshops about what hate crime means.

“We need to have difficult conversations with communities.

“Women of different religions or ethnicities can come together and talk about this at our Empowering Mothers Against Radicalisation and Grooming workshops.

“It’s really important people have difficult conversations.

“There is a rise in hate crimes - which is down to police recording everything - but there is also a rise when terrorist attacks take place.

“It’s about looking at our communities.”

Ms Mahmood also urged people to read more widely on the issues facing all cultures and said some people only read the headlines of articles, which did not provide a comprehensive picture of what is happening.

She added: “People have questions and they often go to the media for these answers and take information from there.

“People need to be more open to knowledge and learning.

“Some people don’t have time to read the full article, so they go off the image or a headline.”

Anyone who does not feel able to report hate crimes to police can visit a number of places around Bradford to report their concerns.

They can be found on Bradford Hate Crime Alliance’s website at bradfordhatecrimealliance.org.uk/hate-crime-reporting-centres.htm