From January to April 2016, the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement has conducted in nine countries a European Testing campaign to evaluate the levels of racial discrimination in the job market.
The results, presented in the graphic below, show alarming peaks:
Racial discrimination is illegal and represents a fundamental breach in the core values of equality and liberty which are supposed to lie at the heart of our democracies.
In a time of social crisis, it makes it even harder for some individuals to find work only because of their backgrounds, and pushes them to the margins of our societies, a situation which is often and perversely reproached to them.
These results, however high, are not entirely a surprise, since racism has been spreading with increasing permissiveness in recent years all over Europe at the political level, by some opinion leaders as well as in the general population, and since the action by civil society and by the national and European institutions has not been determined enough to fight this phenomenon.
Whatever our positions, it is our responsibility to act to make our societies more just.
Therefore, EGAM urges the various stakeholders concerned to vigorously take action, in the following ways:
The NGOs:
- To launch anti-discrimination campaigns, for example by using Testing.
- To file complaints against the individuals and institutions responsible for discrimination.
- To build anti-discrimination departments in order to support victims.
- To educate to anti-discrimination, including through formal and informal education.
The local and national authorities:
- To fund NGOs for them to conduct anti-discrimination campaigns.
- To exclude from all calls for tender companies condemned for discrimination.
- To organize anti-discrimination training sessions for civil servants, especially among the judicial authorities and the police.
- For the governments, to adopt a penal policy urging the courts to carefully pay attention to discrimination cases.
The companies:
- To organize anti-discrimination training sessions for the employees.
- To fund NGOs so that they organize Testing campaigns on them.
The parliaments:
- To adopt, when it is not the case yet, laws recognizing the Testing as an evidence of discrimination in court, as well as enhanced anti-discrimination laws.
The European institutions:
- To fund NGOs for them to conduct anti-discrimination campaigns.
- To ask the States, following the example of the National strategies for integration of Roma people, to present and implement clear strategies to fight racial discrimination.
- To condition European subsidies to States to the seriousness of their actions to fight racial discrimination, and to exclude subsidies to companies which have been condemned for discrimination.
The 2016 European Situation Testing Campaign on Racial Discrimination in the Labor Market was carried out by EGAM, with the involvement of the following organizations : ZARA (Austria), Mrax (Belgium), Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (Bulgaria), Czech Helsinki Committee (Czech Republic), SOS Mod Racism (Denmark), SOS Racisme (France), Amadeu Antonio Stiftung (Germany), Netzwerk Rassismus-und Diskriminierungsfreies Bayern e.V. (Germany), SOS Razzismo (Italy), Youth Initiative for Human Rights Kosovo (Kosovo), Civic Alliance (Montenegro), Youth Initiative for Human Rights Serbia (Serbia), Ekvilib Institute (Slovenia), Malmo Mot Diskriminering (Sweden), IHD – Human Rights Association (Turkey), The Institute of Partnership and Sustainable Development (Ukraine)
