06/03/2025June 3, 2025
Women often victims as discrimination reports rise — federal agency
Germany’s Federal Anti- Agency has announced from people who say they have been disadvantaged because of their race, disability or gender.
Anti-discrimination commissioner Ferda Ataman said the agency had received 11,405 reports — an increase 6% compared with 2023 and double the number in 2019.
Most of the reports (43%) mentioned in the agency’s 2024 review concerned racist discrimination.
Twenty-seven percent of the reported cases of discrimination were to do with disabilities, and 24% concerned cases where people were subjected to unfair treatment on the basis of their gender.
Here, were most frequently the victims, Ataman said, with the number doubling in the past five years.
She said women mostly experienced discrimination at work or while seeking employment, with job applications by young women often ignored because they could end up having children.
Reports of sexual harassment were also at a record level of 348 for the year, she said.
Ataman said she sees a direct connection between the rise in popularity of the far-right party and the growing number of cases of discrimination.
“What I notice, and what we observe in the agency, is that as the approval ratings for a rise, more and more people feel legitimated in making denigrating remarks in everyday life.”
Ataman also criticized anti-discrimination laws in Germany, saying that “parking offenses are prosecuted rigorously more than discrimination against other people.”
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