Discrimination, harassment, violence and rights awareness
| Pages | 31-41 |
31
4
Discrimination, harassment,
violence and rights awareness
This chapter examin es the distinct e xperiences of
women and men respondents who experienced dis-
crimination, harassment, as well as violence motivated
by racism. EU law forbids di scrimination an d harass-
ment on grounds of raci al or ethnic origi n (Council
Directive2000/43/EC implementing the principle of
equal treatment irresp ective of racial or ethnic origin).
Furthermore, th e EU adopted in 2008 criminal law p rovi-
sions (Framework Decision on combating certain forms
and expressions of ra cism and xenophobia by m eans
of criminal law 2008/913/JH A) to ensure that serious
manifestations of racism and xenophobia are punished
by effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal
penalties, as well as to i mprove and encourage judicial
cooperation in this a rea. In addition, the 20 12 Victims’
Rights Directive foresees targeted support services
for victims of gend er-based viol ence and calls for pay-
ing particula r attention to victi ms of hate crime.78 In
2016, and in view of evide nce on the persisting rate s
of racially motivated cr ime, the European Commi ssion
set up aHigh Level Group to i mprove cooperation and
coordination of the effo rts of EU countries, and FR A was
asked to facilitate its specific sub-group on methodolo-
gies on recording and coll ecting data on hate crimes.79
It should be noted that w hile the EU’s anti-discri mina-
tion directives ap ply to third-country na tionals, they
do not cover unequal treatmen t based on nationali ty
per se, although as t he Commission has poi nted out,
“there is sometimes an over lap between racial or
ethnic origin an d other grounds, in particular nat ional-
ity, religion and language”.80 Moreover, as previously
78 Counc il Directive 29/2012/EU of 2 5 October 2012 establishing
minimum st andards on the right s, support and prote ction of
victims of cr ime, and replacing Cou ncil Framework Decis ion
2001/220/JHA, OJ 2012 L315 , Article9(3) and A rticle22(3).
79 See FRA Subgroup on methodologies for recording and
collectin g data on hate crime.
80 European Co mmission (2014).
mentioned, both th e Single Permit and th e Long-term
Residence directives introduce equal treatment of
third-country nationals with the nationals of the host
Member State in several a reas of social life.81 Never-
theless, as FRA reported, nationality-based discrimi-
nation against th ird-country nationa ls is prohibited in
Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Hungary,
Ireland, Italy, the Nethe rlands, Portug al, Romania and
the United Kingdom.82
During the past year s, FRA’s work has produced consid-
erable evidence on th e worrying ex tent of racism and
xenophobia manifested as discrimination, harassment
and hate crime across the E U. In 2009, the results of
FRA’s first wave of EU-MIDIS showed that a consider-
able proporti on– one in three respondents (30%)– felt
discriminated against because of their ethnicity (with
respect to one or more a reas of life) in the year pre-
ceding the survey. Eight years later, the resul ts of the
second wave of this survey, publish ed in 2017, show
little progress: de spite arange of legal and policy meas-
ures taken by the EU and its M ember States, one in
four respondents (2 4%) still felt discrim inated against
because of their eth nic or immigrant background i n the
12 months preceding th e survey.83
Discrimination is experienced differently by women and
men, the young and th e old, and by immigra nts and
descendants of imm igrants. For ex ample, on average,
the second generati on indicates highe r levels of reli-
gious discrimi nation than the first generation of im mi-
grants: one out of five second-generation respondents
81 Ibid.
82 FR A (2017b), pp. 29-30.
83 Th e generic expressio n ‘ethnic or immigrant b ackground’
combines sur vey data for three grou nds of discriminati on
that were separ ately asked about in the su rvey: skin colour,
ethnic orig in or immigrant bac kground, and religio n or
religious belief.
To continue reading
Request your trial