Halo Code: UK’s first Black hair code aims to protect employees from discrimination

The code has already been adopted by Unilever, one of the UK’s biggest employers

Profile Portrait of African American young woman. Confident female with afro hair is wearing casuals. She is against white background.

A GROUP of young, Black activists have founded the ‘Halo Code’ which aims to protect people in workplaces and schools with hair or hairstyles associated with racial, ethnic and cultural identities and traditions. 

Launched by the Halo Collective, an alliance of young Black organisers from The Advocacy Academy, the code has already been adopted by Unilever, one of the UK’s biggest employers.

In businesses that sign up to the code, members of the Black community are promised they have the freedom to wear afro hairstyles without judgement or restriction.

16 year-old co-founder Katiann Rocha told BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat “it will allow for Black people to be fully accepted in an environment that celebrates their natural hair and styles.”

She said she has personally experienced discrimination because of her hair, including comments labelling it “messy”, “unkempt” and “wild.”

The Halo Collective said online: “For too long, Black people have been told that our hair textures and hairstyles are inappropriate, unattractive, and unprofessional.

“We’ve been suspended from school, held back in our careers, and made to feel inferior by racist policies and attitudes.”

Race-based hair discrimination was made illegal in the UK when the Equalities Act became law in 2010. 

However, 58% of Black students still experience name calling or uncomfortable questions about their hair at school and 46% of schools attended by Black children still penalise Afro hair, according to research by World Afro Day and De Montfort University last year.

I May Destroy You star, Weruche Opia, told the BBC she supports the code.

Richard Sharp, HR vice-president of Unilever UK & Ireland, told Newsbeat: “We believe the individuality of hair should be celebrated, which is why we are supporting and communicating the Halo Code to our people, and believe it is a vital step in the fight to ensure racial justice and racial equity for the next generation.”

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