Spice Girl Mel B backs campaign to end Afro hair discrimination

Campaigners have called on the Government to make Afro hair a protected characteristic to prevent race discrimination in schools and the workplace.

The campaign group World Afro Day (WAD) went to Parliament to convince MPs to amend the 2010 Equality Act to add the specification for Afro hair.

More than 100 public figures, including singers Mel B and Beverley Knight, have signed an open letter to the UK Government supporting the change.

Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington Paulette Hamilton sponsored a drop-in clinic in Parliament yesterday and said she has previously felt she would ‘never succeed in a career’ with her natural hair.

She added: “I’d wear wigs, I’d have perms, I’d wear extensions, because that’s what people said I had to do.”

WAD founder Michelle De Leon said: “When you’re a little black girl or a little brown girl, you kind of look at princesses ... and you have this real hair envy, that your hair isn’t as nice as everybody else’s hair.”