A BIG majority of Africans and Roma living in the EU report discrimination, according to a survey published yesterday by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), with more than 90 per cent having experienced discrimination in certain of the EU’s 27 member states.
Ireland occupies a middle place in the discrimination stakes, 14th out of the total of 27 countries surveyed. The survey was conducted for Ireland in the Dublin metropolitan area among sub-Saharan Africans and central and east Europeans, and 73 per cent of the Africans said they had experienced discrimination here. A high percentage also said there were places they would not venture for fear of discrimination or racially-based attack.
This compares with 94 per cent of North Africans considering discrimination against them to be widespread in Italy, 90 per cent of Roma feeling such discrimination in Hungary, and 88 per cent of North Africans and 87 per cent of sub-Saharan Africans experiencing such discrimination in France.
Roma emerge as the group most likely to experience discrimination across Europe, particularly in eastern and central Europe. The levels of discrimination reported by them were 83 per cent in the Czech Republic, 80 per cent in Slovakia, 78 per cent in Greece and 76 per cent in Poland.
As well as North Africans, Romanians and Albanians also felt discriminated against in Italy, with 77 and 76 per cent reporting such experiences there.
Specific migration patterns are also revealed in the survey, with the Portuguese-speaking Brazilians reporting an experience of discrimination in Portugal, the only country where there is any report of discrimination against Brazilians.
The FRA also published a specific report on discrimination against Roma yesterday, describing their experiences of law enforcement agencies, being victims of crime, their perceptions of discrimination and their awareness of rights and complaints mechanisms.
Commenting on the survey, the Irish chair of the FRA, Anastasia Crickley, said that there was no reason for complacency in Ireland with regard to discrimination. “The survey was conducted last year before the downturn, and also before the abolition of bodies like the National Consultative Committee on Racism and the cuts to the Equality Authority,” she said. “We will be challenged into the future given the downturn and the fact that the infrastructure for combating discrimination is much poorer.”