The report of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman on the year 2016

On 11 April 2017, the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman’s Office published the report on the year 2016, presenting the activity on fight against discrimination on grounds of gender, age, nationality, language, origin, religion, beliefs, race, sexual orientation or disability.

In 2016, Equal Opportunities Ombudsman’s Office Conducted 89 inquiries with regard to age discrimination, while in 2015 – 48.

The office received 28 requests and set up 32 inquiries with regard to the discrimination on grounds of race, language and ethnic origin. The largest number of received complaints regarded the discrimination based on language and national affiliation (26 requests). In 2015, 25 inquiries were set up.

With regard to possible discrimination on grounds of religion and religious beliefs, the Office received 12 complaints; while in 2015, 64 complaints were received.

The least number of complaints (2), related to possible sexual orientation discrimination. It may be a result of the community’s negative attitude towards homosexual people. In 2015, 5 such complaints were received.

In 2016, European Foundation of Human Rights submitted 26 complaints to the Office regarding possible discrimination. 14 of them related to age discrimination, which constitutes 23% of the total number of complaints concerning discrimination on grounds of age. In 2015, EFHR submitted 127 complaints.

After receiving complaints from the EFHR, the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman concluded that 17 job advertisements were contrary to the Art. 11 of Law on Equal Treatment, because they gave priority to people of certain age or identified preferred gender, even though the employer could not state the reason for that.

It is worthy to add that in 2015, EFHR together with the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman’s Office, prepared and distributed a leaflet instructing how to formulate job advertisements without violation of Laws provisions. The leaflet was published on the Office’s website as well as on the website of the EFHR.

Whereas, on 15 November 2016, Ewelina Baliko, the representative of the EFHR and lawyer’s assistant, delivered a training on the premises of the “Pakmarkas”. During the training, she discussed the prohibition of discrimination in job advertisements, when recruiting an employee; as well as the prohibition of discrimination in public speaking and she provided an insight into recognising discriminatory job offers and how to avoid such mistakes. She also sensitised to the prohibition of discrimination in the advertising of goods and services, presenting graphic and multimedia examples of advertisements regarded by the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman’s Office as discriminatory.

EFHR would like to encourage everyone to report to the Foundation any information about job advertisements which may violate the law. We would like to thank everybody who has already let us know about this kind of advertisements and we invite everyone to cooperation.

EFHR would also like to thank the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman’s Office for the opportunity to cooperate.

EFHR