At last, a Europe-wide survey that sees Portugal coming out on top.
“Being Black in the EU” was published yesterday and puts Portugal “among the countries where black people feel less discriminated”.
The survey polled 12 countries and discovered that black people in Austria and Finland felt most discriminated.
But the issue is not quite so ‘black and white’ (excuse the pun).
“Almost twenty years after adoption of EU laws forbidding discrimination, people of African descent in the EU face widespread and entrenched prejudice and exclusion”, the report which conducted interviews with almost 6000 immigrants and people of African descent explains.
Thus, Portugal may be ‘among the best’, but even the best ‘could do better’.
Discrimination still in evidence includes “non-verbal insinuations, offensive commentaries and (at the worst end of the scale) threats of violence”.
In the five years preceding the study, an average of around 30% of those questioned across the board “guaranteed that they had experienced intimidation of a racist nature” . Around 21% had such an experience in the last year. Less than a third of these victims however had reported the incidents to the authorities.
As for racist violence, 5% of those quizzed said they had been victims over the last five years, and 3% said they had experienced racist violence in the months preceding the study, “including physical aggressions on behalf of police agents”.
Again, the majority of these victims failed to complain about the incidents: 34% because they felt it would make no difference - and 28% because they “don’t trust the authorities”.
“Being Black in the EU” was the second European Union Minorities and Discrimination survey, undertaken under the auspices of the FRA (fundamental rights agency).
Countries put under the microscope’ were Finland, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Sweden and the UK.
The report took care not to compare countries too much, but the information that Portugal “is among the best” came from a graph on the percentage of people who had felt discriminated against within the last five years.
Finland’s 63% came top, with Portugal (23%), UK (21%) and Malta (20%) at the better end of the scale.
By NATASHA DONN natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
Article by kind permission of The Portugal Resident
