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MAKING EQUAL TREATMENT LEGISLATION WORK FOR LGBTI PEOPLE

This article discusses the potential of equal treatment legislation to empower and protect LGBTI individuals. It explores the role of equality bodies in promoting equality and combatting discrimination and highlights the challenges they face. The article also addresses under-reporting of discrimination and suggests strategies to improve engagement with equality bodies and make legislation more effective for LGBTI people.

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MAKING EQUAL TREATMENT LEGISLATION WORK FOR LGBTI PEOPLE

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  1. MAKING EQUAL TREATMENT LEGISLATION WORK FOR LGBTI PEOPLE Ilaria Volpe and Niall Crowley

  2. EQUINET • To enable equality bodies to achieve and exercise their full potential at Member State level by sustaining and developing a networking between and a platform for equality bodies at European level

  3. EQUINET • OBJECTIVES: • Enhance skills and capacities of equality body staff • Enhance the strategic capacity of equality bodies • Identify and communicate the learning from the work of equality bodies • Enhance recognition for and strategic positioning of Equinet and member equality bodies

  4. EQUAL TREATMENT LEGISLATION • Prohibits discrimination, harassment and victimisation • Allows positive action • Scope • POTENTIAL: • Empower people experiencing discrimination • Lever for people championing equality • Standard set for society

  5. EQUALITY BODIES • MANDATE: • Promote equality and combat discrimination • FUNCTIONS: • Quasi-judicial equality body • Promotional equality body • ISSUES • Standards

  6. EQUALITY BODIES • Policy work (informing policy making on the basis of the experience and expertise of the equality body); • Legal work (dealing with enquiries and providing legal support or deciding cases); • Work in supporting good practice (guidance and support to employers and service providers); • Research work (conducting or commissioning surveys or research projects); • Communication work (informing people who experience discrimination, duty bearers, and public).

  7. EQUALITY BODIES • Equality bodies are necessary and valuable institutions of social change – Study on equality bodies commissioned by the European Commission

  8. EQUALITY BODIES • POTENTIAL • Individual – Enable individuals who experience discrimination • Institutional – Support new policies, procedures and practices – Build culture of compliance • Policy – Influence legislation and policy making • Stakeholder – Enable a wider field of actors in promoting equality and combating discrimination • Society – Build culture of rights

  9. FRA SURVEY • 47% of all respondents felt discriminated against or harassed on basis of being LGBT in the past year • Younger respondents aged 18 to 24 (57%), lesbian women (55%), and those on low incomes (52%) most likely to experience • 20% of respondents in employment or looking for a job felt discriminated against in past year

  10. FRA SURVEY • 32% of respondents who had accessed a list of goods and services felt discriminated against in the past year • 6% of all respondents were attacked or threatened with violence in the past year • 19% of all respondents were victims of harassment in the past year. • Lesbian women (23%) and transgender people (22%) most likely to experience harassment

  11. EQUALITY BODIES AND LGBTI ISSUES SURVEY • Societal context • Action to address under-reporting • Strategy developed by equality bodies • Tactics employed by equality bodies • Internal challenges within equality bodies • Diversity amongst LGBTI people

  12. EQUALITY BODIES AND LGBTI ISSUES SURVEY • Policy work • Legal work • Promotional work • Research work • Communications work

  13. EQUALITY BODIES AND LGBTI ISSUES SURVEY • FACTORS THAT ENHANCE: • Progressive, capable and active LGBTI NGOs • Positive duties in equal treatment legislation • BARRIERS: • The lack of human and financial resources • The lack of trust in statutory bodies

  14. EQUALITY BODIES AND LGBTI ISSUES SURVEY • CHALLENGES: • Absence of a gender analysis • Lack of engagement with intersex people • Limited engagement with trans people • The absence of internal procedures to ensure a focus on LGBTI issues • Gaps in the knowledge about LGBTI issues.

  15. UNDER-REPORTING – FRA SURVEY • Of those respondents who in the past year had felt discriminated, just 10% had reported the discrimination to the authorities • Only 22% of the most serious incidents of violence in the past five years were brought to the attention of the police

  16. UNDER-REPORTING – FRA SURVEY • REASONS: • ‘nothing would change’ (59%). • ‘not worth reporting’ (44%). • ‘did not want to reveal sexual orientation/gender identity’ (37%). • ‘not worth the trouble’ (37%). • ‘did not know where to go’ (30%).

  17. UNDER-REPORTING • EQUALITY BODY STRATEGIES: • Understand under-reporting. • Develop a strategic response to under-reporting. • Relate with NGOs. • Build Trust. • Seek change in the Equal Treatment Legislation.

  18. QUESTIONS • WHAT ENGAGEMENT HAVE YOU HAD WITH EQUALITY BODIES? • WHAT ISSUES EMERGE FROM THIS CONTACT? • WHAT STEPS ARE NEEDED TO IMPROVE THIS ENGAGEMENT? • WHAT STEPS ARE NEEDED TO MAKE EQUAL TREATMENT LEGISLATION WORK FOR LGBTI PEOPLE?

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