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Home > The Swedish Equality Ombudsman in the Spotlight
The Swedish Equality Ombudsman in the Spotlight
Katri Linna, Swedish Equality Ombudsman and Equinet Board Member, kindly accepted to present the Swedish equality body, its achievements and challenges. In the interview, Ms Linna also shares her experience, hopes for the future and expectations in relation to the next Equality Summit. 1) Can you tell us a bit more on the history and evolution of your equality body?
On 1 January 2009 the new Discrimination Act (Swedish Code of Statutes 2008:567) entered into force. At the same time a new agency, the Swedish Equality Ombudsman, was established to supervise compliance with the Act. The Act covers the following grounds: sex, transgender, ethnic origin, religion or other belief, disability sexual orientation and age. Two of these grounds are new: age and transgender. The Equality Ombudsman has to monitor compliance with the Act. The Ombudsman’s mandate also covers claims concerning differential treatment due to pregnancy leave. In conjunction with the establishment of the new Equality Ombudsman as an equality body, the four previous offices of the anti-discrimination ombudsmen were phased out; these were the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman (Gender Equality), the Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination, the Disability Ombudsman and the Ombudsman against Discrimination due to Sexual Orientation. In brief, the history of the new Ombudsman is to a large extent based on the history of the four previous government agencies known as the anti-discrimination Ombudsmen that were merged on 1 January 2009, as well as the anti-discrimination laws that they were to enforce. The Equal Opportunities Ombudsman (Gender Equality), established in 1980, was the first anti-discrimination Ombudsman. The law on equal opportunities concerning gender was inspired to a large extent by the experiences in the US (the 1964 Civil Rights Act) and the work in the UK. The Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination was established in 1986, basically without any legal enforcement powers. These were added through Acts adopted in 1994, 1999 and thereafter. The Disability Ombudsman was established in 1994, also without any legal enforcement powers. These were added in 1999 concerning working and thereafter expanded concerning other fields. Finally the Ombudsman against Discrimination due to Sexual Orientation was established in 1999. Enforcement powers concerning working life were included as part of the mandate as from 1999 and were thereafter expanded in other fields. Thus, while the Equality Ombudsman is new as an equality body, it nevertheless has a rich history to build on covering the different equality grounds. What is apparent is that we now have a strong mandate concerning the human right of equality. Our primary goal is to achieve further respect of the dignity and equal rights for all.
2) Which discrimination cases are you currently dealing with? Which problems are you experiencing, if any? We are currently dealing with complaints involving each of the discrimination grounds. We have had about 1000 complaints submitted since 1 January 2009. One major issue for the new Equality Ombudsman has been ensuring the development of a common strategy – particularly given that the new agency was the result of a merging of four separate agencies. This strategy is now in place. Our goal is contributing to the achievement of social change in the direction of greater equality. The strategic objectives adopted by the Ombudsman include the following: (i) Strategic legal enforcement, (ii) Key societal actors promote equal rights and opportunities, (iii) Empowerment of key through a mutual education process (iv) Increased awareness of the link between individual cases and discriminatory structures. It should be noted that these objectives should not be seen as necessarily independent of each other, the idea being that each of them can on its own, and particularly in interplay with the others, contribute to change in the direction of greater equality. One example of this strategy is the work the DO is following up on of the former Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination. This involved a focus on discrimination directed toward the Roma. The mutual education strategy in use since 2001 has led to an increased awareness of rights by the victims, an increased awareness by the Ombudsman of the situation of the Roma, a greater trust in the willingness of the Ombudsman to actually bring cases to court and an increase in the number of successful cases concerning discrimination against Roma.
An important challenge for the Ombudsman is expanding the use of this method to other groups that are the targets of discrimination. The Ombudsman’s first six months can be summarized with the following: The Ombudsman’s long term goal is that the law is to function as an effective tool for helping individuals. It is therefore positive that we have won a number of cases that help to develop the protection against discrimination. At the same time it is important to remember we cannot achieve the overall goal of dignity and equal rights for all – on our own. We must therefore keep in mind the importance of involving the social partners and other key actors in society, particularly the representatives of civil society. Concerning individual cases we have recently had a major victory in the Labour Court related to equal treatment for those on pregnancy leave. We are hoping that this indicates the beginning of a trend in a more positive direction. There have been all too few victories in the Labour Court, while there have been quite a few more in the general court system. We are also bringing a number of lawsuits that in different ways challenge discriminatory structures related to gender. Quite a few of these involve a pregnant woman’s right to sick pay. Another one focuses on the rights of fathers to a care subsidy when taking care of a child with a disability. The new discrimination ground related to "age” has led to 84 complaints, mainly from older men. This is in spite of the impression that we have that age discrimination primarily affects women. But it is possible that women are not as effective as men in asserting their rights. Another issue related to the age complaints is that about 30 % fall outside the protected areas of “working life” and “education”. Hopefully, there will be an expansion of the protection in the future. I also want to point out that about 40 of the complaints involve more than one discrimination ground. This is one of the indications about the importance of having a broad human rights approach to equality rather than the previous focused on separate grounds.
3) Do you have specific needs and expectations in the context of Equinet – European Network of Equality Bodies? Can you assess to which extent and how Equinet is providing support to your equality body? What added value is Equinet bringing to your functioning and daily work? Our specific needs and expectations related to Equinet concern the exchange of specific legal strategies (which ones have worked and which have not) related to both court cases as well as other arenas in which non-discrimination needs to be given priority. In addition we are interested in analyses of how the potential impact of various cases/complaints can be determined. We are hoping for an exchange of effective policy ideas – including analyses of the context in which they were effective. Analyses made within Equinet of the interplay of different discrimination grounds are another important issue. We also hope that Equinet will be a source of information concerning research as well as being a channel for stimulating research related to examining the effectiveness of various tools for equality within the field. Finally, we believe that Equinet can contribute to the development of a legal strategy at the EU-level which in turn may affect case law and other legal developments in Sweden.
4) In November 2009, there will be the next Equality summit organised in Stockholm jointly by the European Commission and the EU Swedish Presidency. Which are your main expectations and priorities in relation to the Equality Summit? In our communications with the government we have emphasized the importance of promoting the new Equality Directive as well as the promotion of the important role of both civil society as well as other key actors, such as local governments, national government authorities and the social partners in the achievement of greater equality. Our hope is that the new directive will become a reality and that there will be an increased recognition of the role of actors other than equality bodies. Naturally this is something that even equality bodies need to analyze and promote as a key role for themselves. Finally, we expect that the Equality summit will be a forum for demonstrating how a national equality body can be the link between the protection provided by the law and the fulfillment of the rights of individuals.
Beyond the answer to question 4) I can also point out that the Ombudsman will be pushing the same agenda in the various arenas in which we will be participating in during the Presidency.
6) What is your assessment of the level of awareness of citizens in your country about the role of your equality body, and of their level of trust and confidence in it? Do people generally know that your equality body is there for them and can provide legal advice and assistance to address and combat discrimination? The awareness level can be presumed to vary substantially. We have no current statistics since the Ombudsman is so new. However, awareness of the previous anti-discrimination ombudsmen had increased over the years and the merger leading to the new Ombudsman on 1 January 2009 involved a relatively large amount of publicity. Since 1 January 2009 the Ombudsman has had a fairly constant presence in the media. Unfortunately though, we assume that the level of awareness is unevenly distributed. The level of knowledge as well as awareness is probably fairly low among various vulnerable groups. This is also a reason that we can see that there is a substantial level of underreporting of discrimination. Beyond this it is also important to point out that increased awareness and knowledge, by themselves are not necessarily enough. This is the reason why our work is building on the mutual education strategy, mentioned above, developed within the previous Ombudsman Against Ethnic Discrimination. This strategy is based on a mutual education process between vulnerable groups and personnel at the Ombudsman’s office. Awareness of the law, other rights and avenues of redress is to increase among the groups. The Ombudsman’s personnel are to develop a greater understanding and improved analysis of the discrimination that these groups are subjected to. There are indications that this strategy has led, among other things, to increased empowerment of the groups, increased trust in the Ombudsman, the submission of more effective complaints and increased number of successful settlements and court cases. We are thus interested in developing new and more effective means of reaching out to those who are the targets of discrimination.
The work with a mutual education strategy mentioned above, we believe, is an idea that is relevant to the public. By contributing to empowerment of vulnerable groups, it is a means for transforming words into action. It is also an idea that I think may be of interest to other equality bodies.
Thank you Ms Linna for your contribution. |
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