Discriminatory behavior or WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Discriminatory behavior can have different forms that are described in the Antidiscrimination Law:

• Direct discrimination

Direct discrimination based on race, ethnic origin or nationality happens when a person is treated unfavorably or less favorably because of her/his race, ethnic origin or nationality. An owner of pool who denies entrance to the pool area to visitors of darker skin, or a waiter that refuses to serve customers who are of Hungarian nationality are clear examples.

• Indirect discrimination

Indirect discrimination can be any directive, decision, incentive or frequently used procedure that without any objective reason disqualifies a person or group of people, even though it may seem apparent at first that it is not directed against anyone. For example, there is the practice, often used by schools with larger proportion of Roma scholars, of dividing children into classrooms according to the alphabetic order of their last names. At the outset, this would seem unbiased, however the actual intention of the school is to segregate the Roma into a separate classroom knowing that these children often have the same surname. Likewise, the tests used at the entrance to first grade are also an example of indirect discrimination. These tests utilize cultural symbols that are known to be different from the symbols Roma children are familiar with and use, and subsequently the majority of Roma children are transferred into remedial schools at an early stage of their school experience though they may not carry any genuine developmental impairment.

• Harassment

According to the Slovak Antidiscrimination Law, harassment is one of the forms of discrimination. We talk about harassment when someone treats another person unpleasantly, offensively, or in a disregarding way, because that someone maintains a position of power or the authority to decide important things in the life of this person. A Roma employee being treated badly by non-Roma colleagues would demonstrate such an example. The Roma employee is humiliated by being publicly accused of petty thefts, maligned in front of the boss, or denied access to an employee-shared closet and the like. Harassment due to prejudice and intolerance is thus transposed into a form of discrimination.

• Incentive and sedition to discrimination; unjustifiable sanction

Law also prohibits any action working as incentive or sedition to discrimination. To order a discriminating act or talk someone into discriminating against someone else is against the law. Law also protects against any unjustifiable sanction that might be cast upon a person when filing a discrimination complaint with the appropriate office, appealing to court with a suit, or testifying in favor of somebody who was discriminated against. For instance, if a non-Roma employee testifies in court on the behalf of a Roma colleague in a discrimination case and subsequently the job benefits of the non-Roma colleague are affected negatively, the employer would be in breach of antidiscrimination law.

Generally, in democratic countries the premise applies that affiliation to a nation or ethnic group is self-imposed and is a personal decision for each person. Regardless of the nationality of your parents, you may or may not choose to identify with that same group. That today, state and public institutions do not have the right to inquire about a person’s nationality is probably caused by the long said history of discrimination and ethnic genocide. This is based on the assumption that if it is prohibited to discriminate, it should also be prohibited to ask about people’s nationality. Details of one’s nationality cannot be present in identity cards (ID), questionnaires for potential employees, school enrollment forms, or in a listing of clients compiled by private firms. Nationality can be only asked voluntarily as part of an anonymous statistic research or poll by an institution or organization.