As part of the cooperation with journalists within the project “Empowerment of Legal Aid Providers to Fight Gender Based Discrimination in the Labor Market in BiH” we bring you text of the journalist from portal Direkt, Nikolija Bjelica Škrivan, on gender based discrimination and free legal aid providers.
“When she decided to look for a job in a store in Trebinje, in the application form she was asked to provide, among other things, information about her marital status, whether and how many children she has, and how old the children are. Even though she filled out the information properly, she wondered, just to herself, why this was important to her potential employer at all. Our interviewee, whom we will call Dijana, is married and has one child. She is currently not employed.
She believes that questions like these should not have any impact on hiring, nor should they be on a job application at all.
Although by law all persons are equal in the employment process, it is not uncommon to see employers “looking for a younger female” or “male worker” on advertisements, or they employ a person with certain characteristics that are related to only one gender. These ads initially eliminate and discriminate against people of the other sex, although this should not be the case. Discrimination is also when men and women are paid differently for the same job, with the same professional qualification, or as the law would say – if they are placed in an unequal position in the same situation.
There is discrimination, but reports are rare
Discrimination at work based on sex and gender is recognized difficultly, rarely or not at all by citizens. Even less often they decide to take the step of reporting discrimination. The interviewees with whom we talked about this topic explained to us that before filing a lawsuit, the employee can complain to the employer, the inspectorate, and that there is a possibility of peaceful resolution of labor disputes. But the bigger problem is that there are almost no reports of this type of discrimination.”
Full article available at: Direkt portal
