🔴New director and new addition to our E@W partnership!

E@W Monthly Newsletter | 31 March 2022

We hope this newsletter finds you well. As announced in our last newsletter back in February, we plan to keep you more updated this year on our collective progress with the Equal@Work platform. It starts with newsletter we will be sending to you each month to collect the progress we have made together. :-)

Here is a recap of our main joint activities since our last newsletter in February.

Kim Smouter joins the leadership team at ENAR to strengthen the movement’s reach and impact at a critical time in the fight against racism!

“We want to take ENAR to the next level by embracing our role as a convenor of all agents interested in transforming our societies from ones that systemically discriminate to a society that systemically includes. That’s a long-term vision that requires the involvement of all actors from grassroots civil society organisations, to public authorities, to business. ENAR has to be a broad inclusive alliance, spearheaded by the organisations that are at the apex of the fight against racism, our members. I’m very excited about our plans to modernise how ENAR works, collaborates, and keeps the momentum in Europe towards a more inclusive future for all of us”.

Welcome to Alteryx! We are thrilled to welcome Alteryx as a new Equal@Work partner! We look forward to jointly developing creative solutions for better participation of racialised people in the labour market.

Key outtakes from the European anti-racism summit.

On Monday 21 March 2022, the European Commission organised the European Anti-Racism Summit 2022. The summit gathered European institutions, equality bodies and civil society organisations to discuss the implementation of the European action plan against racism and the efforts still required to fight against racism in the European Union.

Stakeholders exchanged on the necessity to look at racism structurally and intersectionally and to move beyond individual forms of racism. The discussions focused on decolonising public spaces, climate justice, racialised youth, education and national action plans against racism.

Racial Equality Directive consultation

What is "RED" ?

It is a legislative framework applicable in all European states requiring them to adopt legislation prohibiting discrimination.

The Directive is under consultation until 11 April 2022 to identify gaps in legislation.

ENAR strongly encourages its Equal@Work partners to be actors of change by responding in this consultation that it is “very important” to provide legal protection against racism on all grounds proposed by the consultation and forbidding discrimination based on race and ethnicity in most areas of life. We have also identified the following gaps:

Intersectionality of racial discrimination is missing from the Directive.
The current Directive focuses on individual racism by providing a mechanism that only accounts for enforcement of individual rights and therefore does not address systemic forms of discrimination. Including an intersectional approach in the Directive would ensure that the combined effects of various grounds of discrimination such as gender, religion, age, sexual orientation and disability are considered.

Nationality must be added as a protected ground.
The Directive needs to protect all people from racially motivated discrimination. Including nationality will ensure that migrants benefit from safeguarding mechanisms.
Institutions exercising public authority like law enforcement must be covered under the scope of the Directive.
The current framework leaves an important hole in terms of accountability of power structures.

ENAR response to the Ukrainian crisis

ENAR urges European States to uphold their obligations to respect fundamental human rights and the right to international protection, refugees and asylum.

Member states need to ensure equal treatment and protection for all those displaced as a result of the crisis in Ukraine, regardless of immigration status, by eliminating racial profiling, different reception measures, and mistreatment by State agents.

While the Temporary Protection Directive has been activated for the first time since its adoption in 2001, it remains disappointing due to the racist double standard it applies which prevents non-Ukrainians from having the same legal protection. “Migrants from a racialised backgrounds are often granted a 15-day visa which pales in comparison to the potential 3 years provided to Ukrainian migrants. Passports should not be a criteria which provides one group of people more protection over another. The Temporary Protection Directive shall not be an instrument that legitimised discrimination”, says Juliana Wahlgren, Senior Advocacy Officer at ENAR.

To read more on what employers can do to support refugee inclusion in the workplace, please find here our toolkit providing concrete solutions.

Funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020), the Open Society Foundations, the Sigrid Rausing Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

The content of this newsletter cannot be considered to reflect the views of ENAR, the European Commission or any other body of the European Union, the Open Society Foundations, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, or the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. The European Commission, the Open Society Foundations, the Sigrid Rausing Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.