Citizens Advice Guernsey examine any enquires they receive and assess the data they then have from all the cases.
In 2018, CAG dealt with an average of 6.5 cases a month, compared to just 3.5 in 2017. This came to a total of 78 cases across the 12 months – 28 of these were discrimination cases and the rest harassment.
‘Race and ethnicity’ were the number one reason people felt they were being discriminated against, or harassed, the report found. 28% of all the cases, and 56% of work-based cases, were linked to this.
The report said: “Further examination of these cases did not find that a specific nationality was most at risk, although Latvians were involved in the highest number of cases by a very small margin. A few described being harassed as mixed race or black.
“In several cases, managers alleged to be perpetrating the harassment were Latvian, Romanian and Portuguese.”
That angle came up far more often than any other ‘perceived reason’, the report also concluded. Others included gender or sexual orientation, linked to 9% of cases, and age, linked to 5%.
“It is encouraging to see that sex/gender discrimination was proportionately lower in occurrence in 2018 – down to 9% from 17% in 2017. However, discrimination in employment on the grounds of sex, marriage or gender reassignment is unlawful in Guernsey, and so we would like to see this figure reduced even further.”
Of all the cases CAG dealt with in 2018, 39, or 50%, were work-based. 19% were related to family disputes, 14% to do with home context, 8% linked to rental properties and 5% related to retail.
In conclusion, Citizens Advice wrote: “It may not be surprising that the workplace is the major context for Discrimination and Harassment, given that for most employees their paid work takes up the highest proportion of their time outside the privacy of their own home. For this very reason, however, it is all the more distressing.”
Currently in Guernsey there is no specific legislation to legally protect people from general discrimination, whether that be employees or members of the public. The States Committee for Employment & Social Security is working on finalising this legislation at the moment. Its development started with the passing of the Disability and Inclusion Strategy in 2013.
Last November, the Committee said it was a step closer to developing it, as work it had carried out looking at a number of different jurisdiction’s laws was finished, allowing staff to progress with drafting the local law.
CAG could only emphasise the importance of that legislation in its report, as it found there was no legislation protecting the groups who it found to be facing the most discrimination or harassment cases.
Outside of employment, the majority of cases were involving family disputes, an area where there is some legislation to help protect people.
CAG acknowledged that human relationships were ‘always prone to difficulties, due to personal circumstances, relationship history and other factors’.
“Legal protection may be available for some through The Harassment Law, but this is a last resort that most wish to avoid,” it added.