The Director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Michael O'Flaherty, presented the results of a study on equality of LGBTI people at a press conference in the European Parliament on Friday 15 May. It’s the second one conducted by the FRA on this subject in seven years.
These results “are discouraging”, O'Flaherty said, lamenting that very little progress has been made in the past seven years.
Although more people are “open about being LGBTI”, discrimination against them still persists. The proportion of respondents who felt discriminated against in a café, restaurant, bar or nightclub, for example, rose from 18% in 2012 to 26% in 2019.
The same applies to physical or sexual assault. One in ten participants said they had been the target of such violence in the five years preceding the survey. However, victims of discrimination and abuse are still - or even more - reluctant to report incidents.
In addition, the study found that young people aged 15 to 17 experienced more harassment than their older peers.
Geographical disparities. The study found significant differences between the countries studied. For example, while in Ireland, Malta and Finland more than 70% of respondents perceived a decrease in intolerance, in Poland and France most respondents said that intolerance had increased overall.
Almost 140,000 people participated in the study, which was carried out in the 27 Member States, the United Kingdom, North Macedonia and Serbia. “It is the largest survey of its kind”, said the FRA. It is also the first to take into account intersex people.
Equal treatment. Michael O'Flaherty called on the EU and national governments to act. “We must tackle hate crime. This involves doing a better job in transposing EU law”, he said, also stressing the need to encourage the reporting of violence.
In order to combat discrimination effectively, Mr. O'Flaherty also stressed that it was essential that the European Equal Treatment Directive be adopted (see EUROPE 12356/16).
The Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, Evelyn Regner (S&D, Austria), spoke on this issue at the press conference. She called on Member States, on behalf of Parliament, to resume their negotiations. “Because it is the right directive to act on”, she said.
Strategy for LGBTI+ equality. The European Commission, for its part, has announced that it will present “a new comprehensive LGBTI+ equality strategy in 2020”.
On Saturday 16 May, the evening before the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, the European Commission will light up its Berlaymont headquarters in rainbow colours.
To view the FRA study: https://bit.ly/3614ON6 (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)